Using automatic sorting in Outlook.
I have switched from Gmail to Outlook, and guess what! There were so many productivity hacks that I needed to re-learn. I have three stories that I want to share, providing some of the productivity hacks I had re-imagined.
#1 Outlook Rules.
#2 Automatic Meeting Scheduling.
#3 PowerApps.
#1 Outlook Rules — Auto sorting.
This writeup is for organizing emails with Outlook Rules to manage your mail as a to-do list and provide categories and archives for other emails that are not essential. With one archive folder and Outlook search functions, I still have all emails available at my fingertips.
From my experience, most people working with Outlook use Outlook folder structure to manage emails. The most common Outlook rule is “Move any email from X to folder Y.”
For me, these basic rules worked best on Desktop experiences, where I could easily see all my folders, with a nice-looking number on the side of the folder if a new email came through. However, I quickly understood that I needed more granularity than one email in one folder.
Building myself away from folders.
I might get an email belonging to multiple folders, which could be a follow-up on my behalf and sent to a team as a newsletter, and it could be from my manager. In my simple mind, This email has the following actions:
01 — Importance Flag High,
Categories;
02 — Action Required.
03 — Manager.
Other emails that are not so important to me are those I want to read in my own time. They might be from another department celebrating their new product release or a welcome email from an employee in a different branch of our company. I want to categorize those emails, sometimes with multiple categories, and I want them to be archived.
Categories;
01 — Newsletter;
02 — Awesome Department;
03 — OKR
Action:
04 — Move to Archive.
Two locations for emails.
Now I have two locations on my email, my Inbox, where anything I must follow up recedes, and my Archive, where all my emails are gathered in one folder structure but tagged with categories.
This allows me on my phone or any device to focus on emails in my inbox, treating them as a to-do list. I can look up any other mail I receive during a workday/week in the Archive, either sorting on unread messages or just simple time-based.
How to;
The rules must be set in Outlook Web and not in Outlook Desktop, as you want the rules to be enforced online on the servers and not by an application on your desktop.
Rules are sequential actions from top to bottom. I, therefore, apply any metadata operations first, like categorization and flags, and at the bottom, I do move operations.
My rules:
Focus — My Access
If the message was received from ‘MyAccess Notifications’, apply the following category: ‘’My Access’’ and mark the message as Normal importance.
Focus — Contains my name
If the body of the message contains the words ‘Andreas’ or ‘Aanerud’, mark the message as High importance and pin the message.
Focus — Action Requested
If the body of the message contains the words ‘Action Requested’, apply the following category: ‘’Action Requested’’ and mark the message as Normal importance.
Focus — mentioned you in
If the body of the message contains the words ‘mentioned you in ‘, mark the message as High importance and move the message to folder ‘Inbox’.
Focus — PROJECTNAME
If the body of the message contains the words ‘PROJECTNAME’, apply the following category: ‘’PROJECTNAME'’.
Focus — Mark CC
If my name is in the Cc box, apply the following category: ‘’CC’’.
Auto Cleanup rules are:
AutoCleanup — Reply to Archive
If the message was received from ‘Andreas Martin Aanerud’, apply the following category: ‘’Replyed’’ and move the message to folder ‘Archive’.
AutoCleanup — Meeting Confirmations
If the message includes specific words in the subject ‘Accepted:’, move the message to folder ‘Archive’.
Learning rules:
Learning — How-To
If the message includes specific words in the subject ‘How-To’, apply the following category: ‘’How-To’’.
Learning — Learning
If the message includes specific words in the subject ‘Learning’, apply the following category: ‘’Learning’’.
Learning — Getabstract.com
If the message was received from ‘booksummary@getabstract.com’, apply the following category: ‘’Getabstract’’.
Azure DevOps rules:
DevOps — ADO — pushed new changes
If the body of the message contains the words ‘pushed new changes’ and the message was received from ‘Azure DevOps Notifications’, apply the following category: ‘’pushed new changes’’.
DevOps — ADO — new pull request
If the body of the message contains the words ‘new pull request’ and the message was received from ‘Azure DevOps Notifications’, apply the following category: ‘’new pull request’’.
DevOps — ADO — published the pull request
If the body of the message contains the words ‘published the pull request’ and the message was received from ‘Azure DevOps Notifications’, apply the following category: ‘’published the pull request’’.
DevOps — ADO — added as a reviewer
If the body of the message contains the words ‘added as a reviewer’ and the message was received from ‘Azure DevOps Notifications’, apply the following category: ‘’added as a reviewer’’.
Note: the first rules are just applying categories, the final rule actually moves it to the Archive.
DevOps — ADO — General
If the message was received from ‘Azure DevOps Notifications’, apply the following category: ‘’DevOps’’ and move the message to folder ‘Archive’.