Smarterware

Three Microsoft Outlook Rules That Prioritize Your Email

Just like the rest of us, Outlook user Scott Hanselman gets too much email, and he's come up with some rules that auto-prioritize incoming email into folders before he even looks at it. Scott uses Outlook at work, and messages from his co-workers inside his company are higher priority; also, he gets invited to a lot of meetings via Outlook. If this is similar to your situation, check out Scott's strategy. He set up three rules which separate incoming email into 1.) messages that were sent directly to him (he's in the To: field), 2.) messages he was CC:'ed on, 3.) messages from outside his company, and 4.) meeting invitations. Hit up Scott's full post for step-by-step directions on how to set up these rules.

As always, your preferred email processing system depends on your situation. As a freelancer who doesn't use Outlook, rarely gets meeting invitations, and almost always gets messages from outside my non-company, this strategy doesn't work as well for me, but for a nine-to-fiver inside a corporate firewall, it makes a whole lot of sense. Thanks, Scott!

The Three Most Important Outlook Rules for Processing Mail [Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen]