Today’s Tech Tip: Organizing Your Outlook

Did you know that you can read an email, then change the subject line to better organize your emails? This little trick has helped me greatly over the years.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say I receive an email from someone that has a subject line that reads “re: your last request” and that email contains detailed plumbing costs from my plumbing sub-contractor for the construction project we are working on with our new church building at 1001 N. Crosby.

To store this email with a better subject line, I change the RE: line to say “BUILDING: New Plumbing Costs” and then file the email in my building folder. Then I click the X in the upper right corner. Outlook responds with “this email has changed, do you want to save the changes.” Click “Yes” and the subject line has been changed!
This way, when I open my building email folder, I see right away that this email deals with the plumbing costs versus it just showing “re: your last request”. This has helped me quickly scan my emails and see what I am looking for. Also, I have found another quick tip is to start the subject line with a capitalized word for one of my main 2007 objectives (like BUILDING, PERSONNEL, MULTI-SITE, COMMUNICATIONS, WEBSITE, TECHNOLOGY, STRATEGY, etc). This lets me group my emails in my inbox without creating a ton of folders. Try it out and let me know what you think.