By Melissa MacBeth

 Note   This article is part of a series from Melissa MacBeth's Best Practices for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

See links to the rest of the articles in this sequence

Manage your time

Set up Outlook to work for you

Manage your time with the daily review

Do your work with the help of Tasks

Find that message! Search effectively

Write great e-mail

Calendars and meetings

Frequently asked questions

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• Tame your Inbox with the 4 Ds

• Delete it

• Do it: The 2-minute drill

• Delegate it

• Defer it

• Just file it

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Tame your Inbox with the 4 Ds

Once you have your system set up, you are ready to begin managing incoming e-mail. By making your Inbox the central place for receiving important e-mail, you can go through it with the confidence that each item is something you need to deal with in one way or another.

For every e-mail message in your Inbox:

1. If it isn't important, delete it immediately.
2. If it can be done in two minutes or less, do it (reply, file, call, and so on).
3. If it isn't for you or if you can, delegate (forward) it.
4. If you need to do it, but it takes longer than two minutes (including reading), defer (hold off on) it.

If you need it as reference (even if you have decided to defer it), move it into your reference folder. The goal is to reduce the number of times you touch each individual e-mail message, which means moving it out of your Inbox.

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Delete it

Delete messages that you don't need to read. If a message is junk, delete it.

Do it: The 2-minute drill

It is amazing what can be done in two minutes. But if a message takes longer than two minutes to deal with, defer it. To get a sense of what two minutes feels like, try timing yourself.

Once you have dealt with the message, do one of the following:

• Delete it (if it is something of little consequence).
• File it in one of your reference folders (for example, 1-Reference).

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Delegate it

Sometimes you receive a message that is really meant for someone else to deal with. In these cases, reply and include the person you are delegating the message to on the To line. If you want to follow up later, flag it for yourself before sending. In your To-Do Bar, mark these tasks with the @Waiting category.

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Defer it

Deferring a message means that you will come back to it later, when you have time.

Reasons to defer a message:

• It cannot be dealt with in less than two minutes.
• It will take a while to read.
• It will require a carefully crafted response.
• It requires additional action in another program (for example, "need to add to name document").

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Flag e-mail to defer

When you decide that you don't have time to deal with a message right away, you can flag it:

• If you need to do it today, flag it for Today (just click the flag).
• If you know that you can put it off for longer, right-click and flag it for another date.
• If it is something you will need in the short term, flag it No Date so that it appears at the top of the To-Do Bar. Be sure to use this group sparingly and clear it out regularly (because it is at the top of your task list).
• If you need it for reference on an ongoing basis and you want easy access to it, drag it to the Later group in the To-Do Bar. If you do not have a Later group, set the flag Start Date on the task to 100 years in the future. (Use this flag rarely so that it does not become an overpopulated catch-all.)

In addition to flagging a message, you can:

• Add appropriate categories.
• Mark it as read, if it isn't already marked as read.
• File it to your reference folder (1-Reference).

Once an item has been flagged, it will appear in the To-Do Bar. By filing it into your reference folder, you are getting it out of your view. But because it is in your task list, you can move on to your next e-mail message, knowing that you will return to it later.

If you want to add more information to your flagged items

If the subject of a message does not provide you enough context, you can do one of two things, depending upon the amount of information you need to add:

• Change the name of the task in the To-Do Bar. Changing the name of the task will not change the subject of the message.
• Create a task with the e-mail message as an attachment.

You can also add a category to help you know at a glance where your next action is. A quick glance at a To-Do Bar with categorized tasks will let you know what is immediately actionable (@Office), which tasks you are waiting on other people for (@Waiting), and what you'll be meeting about (@Meeting).

When do you do the tasks you deferred?

Once you have processed your e-mail, you can tackle your task list. This is when you respond to those messages you have deferred.

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Just file it

Sometimes you receive a message that you do not need to act upon, but which you might need later. A good example is a message with instructions. File these messages in your Reference Folder (1-Reference). Adding a category at this time will make the message easier to find later if you need it (for example, @Project).

To file your mail, you can drag it to the appropriate reference folder, click the Move to Folder command on the toolbar , right-click the message and click Move to Folder, or press CTRL+SHIFT+V to open the Move Items dialog box.

After you finish processing your e-mail, you should have a clean Inbox. You can switch your focus to your calendar and tasks.

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About the author

Melissa MacBeth is a Program Manager in the Outlook product group. She worked on several time management features for Outlook 2007, including the To-Do Bar, flags, flagging on send, and the Daily Task List.

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