6 Productivity Tips to Speed Up Your Workflows

Here are the Productivity Tips to Speed Up Your Workflows

Often, productivity improvements can be hiding inside the applications you use every day. Especially those that are used most often.

People spend about 28% of their workday in their email application, making it one of the richest environments to mine for a few extra minutes here and there throughout the day.

Outlook in Microsoft 365 is one of the most popular business email solutions, and it’s got several opportunities to speed up your workflows, for email handling and in a few other areas as well.

Every minute adds up when it comes to improving business workflows. Just 30 minutes saved per user per day can add up to over 41 hours per week for a 25-person office (a whole other full-time employee worth of time).

If you’re looking for ways to do more in less time, these Outlook productivity tips can help!

Ways to Save Time Using Outlook in Microsoft 365

Create New Tasks from an Email

If you’re spending time retyping or copying your tasks into a task management program, you can speed up that workflow by using Outlook’s task manager.

Emails that have task information can be transferred over to a task by simply dragging them down to the task icon.

This opens a new task that you can then add a due date to and even share with others easily if you want to. No retyping information or having to switch between apps.

Color Code Your Email with Categories

A good portion of the time spent in email is searching through a list of emails to find the one you need. You can simplify this process so it takes less time by using categories to color code your emails.

For example, you can have all emails from marketing be highlighted purple and all emails from your boss have a red “urgent” highlight. This makes it much easier to find what you need quickly.

If you use POP for your email protocol, you can set up categories by either right-clicking on a message and clicking Categorize or choose it from the Tags ribbon. Here are detailed instructions from Microsoft.

Let Email Rules Handle Email Management

There are several automated rules that you can use within Outlook that will automate message handling activities for you, reducing the time you have to spend doing manual tasks in Outlook.

On the Home ribbon, choose the Rules drop down and Create Rule.

Some of the time-saving rules you can put into place include:

• AUTOMATICALLY MOVE MESSAGES FROM CERTAIN PEOPLE OR EMAIL DOMAINS TO A DIFFERENT MAIL FOLDER.
• GET A SOUND ALERT FOR IMPORTANT EMAILS, SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO CONTINUALLY CHECK EMAIL ALL DAY.
• AUTOMATICALLY FLAG A MESSAGE WITH A CERTAIN KEYWORD IN THE SUBJECT LINE FOR FOLLOW UP.
• AUTOMATICALLY FORWARD MESSAGES FROM SPECIFIC EMAIL ADDRESSES TO A PERSON OR GROUP.
• GET AN ALERT ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE WHEN YOU GET A MESSAGE FROM A SPECIFIC PERSON.

Make Sticky Notes Searchable

Outlook has a handy digital sticky note feature that you can access by clicking the three dots in the bar at the bottom of the messages window.

Instead of having sticky notes all over your monitor that are not searchable, use Outlook to jot down those quick notes and store them electronically. This keeps them organized, searchable, and much more secure than being stuck to the side of your computer.

Use Outlook Calendar for Scheduling Meeting Rooms

Trying to keep track of who has which company meeting room scheduled can take up a lot of time for both the person in charge of the reservation list and those trying to figure out if a room is open so it can be booked.

Did you know that Outlook’s calendar has the capability?

Just go into the Microsoft 365 admin panel to Resources and set up a Room Mailbox for your conference rooms.

When users want to schedule a room or see if it’s available, they just use Outlook’s calendar to schedule a meeting.

Add the meeting room like you would any other meeting attendee.

Click Scheduling Assistant to check room availability and click Send on the meeting invitation to book the room.

No more messy or confusing scheduling sheets!

Reuse Text/Images with Quick Parts

If you have certain pieces of information that you end up repeating in emails time and time again – like directions to your office – you can save a lot of time by using Quick Parts to create a reusable text block.

This saves the formatting, text, and images in a selection you make within an email. Then, when you need to use it again, you can simply use Quick Parts to insert the saved block of information into your email in a click.

Want to Make Your Business Workflows More Productive?

There are many ways that you can use your digital tools more productively to save time and improve your workflows. Unbound Digital can help your Tennessee business ensure you’re using your tools to their fullest.

Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. Call 423-335-2461 or reach us online.