Convert E-mails to Tasks by Dragging
By far the most important thing you can do in Outlook is to convert e-mails to tasks. It is incredibly easy to do, and tremendously effective in helping you get your e-mail under control.

Here's how: Just click on the e-mail within the list view of your Inbox, and drag it to the Tasks icon on the left side of the Outlook window. This creates a task out of the e-mail. If you right click before you drag, when you release the mouse, a menu will open giving you choices of how you want to create the task (see figure at right). No matter what approach you take, a Task window will open. Immediately change the title of the task to the intended task action, set the due date, and save the task. That’s it! This is immensely important because the Inbox is a terrible place to manage tasks; you will loose tasks and constantly re-read e-mails as you look for them. In contrast, the Outlook tasks system is a perfect place to manage tasks (once configured as described below).

This simple act of converting e-mails to tasks, if done regularly, removes most of the tension from your Inbox. No longer will your stomach tighten when looking at the Inbox, thinking about all the responsibilities buried in there. All your e-mail to-dos will be neatly prioritized within your task system where they can be acted upon when needed (see Chapter 6 of the book). 

Using Views in Outlook
Ninety percent of all Outlook users do not realize that the e-mail list they use every day is just one of many optional specialized views available in Outlook. Want to see only the unread messages in your Inbox? Use the view titled “Unread Messages in this Folder.” To select that view and many others, first add the Advanced Toolbar by choosing Toolbars from the View menu and selecting Advanced. Then, in the Current View Selector popup menu in that toolbar (see figure at right), choose the view with the name above. You’ll see the entire mail list transformed into just a list of unread e-mails. Choose the “Messages” view to get back to the normal state. There are many other useful views in that list, and the same goes for the Tasks folder. What’s more important however is that you can create custom views with any combination of formatting, filters, sorts, and so on. The Total Workday Control system has you create some very valuable custom views for both tasks and e-mail, to help you get both of these under control (see Chapter 3 of the book). 

Filing E-mails with Outlook Categories
One of the principles of the Total Workday Control system is that you should get e-mails out of your Inbox as soon as possible. Otherwise they clutter your thinking and your workday. But where do you put them? You should of course delete those that are useless, and convert others to tasks if needed. But the rest you should file in a way easy to find later. Most people who file mail create multiple personal folders with names based on topic, and drag e-mail into those classified folders. I do not like this approach because it precludes the option of viewing old mail in one long chronological list, or viewing all mail from one sender. And if mail fits two topics you will not know where to file it. Rather, I recommend you create only one personal folder, drag all e-mail into that folder, and then assign Outlook Categories to that mail based on topic. You can then create a custom view that displays collapsible groups of mail collected by category topic (see figure at right). This has all the benefits of multiple folders but none of the disadvantages. It is a fantastic way to file mail by topic, and a great way to find mail later. This approach is described fully in Chapter 7 of the book.

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