Technology Tales

Adventures & experiences in contemporary technology

Changing Outlook usage habits

2nd August 2010

Given that I have been using it for so long, I shouldn’t be discovering new things with Outlook. However, there is one thing that I have been doing for years: leaving messages set as unread until I have dealt with them. Now that I look at it it seems a very bad habit compared with an alternative that I recently found. Quite why I haven’t been flagging messages for follow-up instead is beyond me. Is it because I worked with Outlook 2000 at a place of work so long and the arrival of Outlook 2007 into my life wasn’t sufficient to force a change of habits? In fact, it has taken a downgrade to Outlook 2003 to make it dawn on me and the sight of search folder for messages marked for follow-up was what triggered the realisation.Speaking of old habits, there is one that I’ll be dropping: setting up loads of rules allegedly for organising messages. Given that they were the cause of my missing emails quite a few times, it’s one more nuisance that needed to be left behind me.

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