Entourage (and other email clients) Productivity tips?

[tobefirst ⚽️]

I'm sitting here at work trying to organize my inbox and sent items folder into some semblance of organization, and it got me wondering...what are some cool tricks you guys use to keep things organized and make repetitive tasks simpler.

So far, all I've done is set up separate folders in my inbox called "personal" and "work." That way, I can easily tell whether the message is important (hopefully "work"!) or if it's something I can get to later.

Also, I read a tip online about using a signature for a repetitive email. For instance, after a long bout of getting an ad I designed approved, I then have to send it, via email, to the publication to which it is going to go. I got tired of typing the same thing over and over to each publication, so I created a signature that had all the same text in it, and allowed me to change a couple of things to tailor it for each business.

What other cool tips do you guys use?

 

[beatle888]

try understanding the way entourage wants you to think (not that you dont already, im just saying) and leave the window open all the time so its always there. start using it for your to do's and assign categories to them like personal, vacation, work, client, vendor. assign catagories to all your contacts and make folders for each category. that way entourage will traffic all your correspondence to the appropriate folders. i believe you can set up views to do that too. instead of creating a folder like described above, you can set up a "VENDORS" view for instance. this option should be in the same left hand panel as the inbox and email folders.

to clarify you can either traffic emails into certain folders you create (like you did with "work" and ...what was the other "personal").

or you can create views. views acts like a filter. so make a view (filter) that "views" all of your "work" emails. this will go through your inbox and only display emails that have the "work" category assigned to it.

emails from new contacts wont show up in either the folder or the views until you've taken the time to add that new contact to its appropriate category.



too wordy?

 

[Diomedes]

If you are using Entourage 2004, you owe it to yourself to look at Project Center.

For example, you mentioned you just designed an ad. With Project Center, you could organize all email, contacts, calendar entries, and files by project. The files can be any type, so you have a central repository of everything associated with your project.

I am an IT manager, so the way I have structured Project Center is to have one "master" project of allinitiatives we are doing for the fiscal year. Then, I've set up individual Projects for specific initiatives. I can then assign contacts, tasks, notes, and calendar entries for those specific initiatives, and have them neatly organized, along with email and files.