Keith O Hudson

Archive for the ‘Time Saving Tips’ Category

Did you know you can edit incoming email messages in Outlook 2003? This can be very handy for keeping your inbox organized, or for making notes when reviewing an incoming email.

If you want to edit the subject line, you simply put your cursor anywhere in the existing subject line, then make whatever additions or deletions you wish to make. Click on File/Save on the top line menu to save your changes. To edit the body of the email, you must first select Edit/Edit Message from the top line menu. After you are done editing, make sure you save your changes.

I’m currently working on a project to download and organize pictures sent to me by email. When I’ve downloaded the pictures from an email, I add the word “DONE” to the subject line so I know I’ve finished saving the pictures from that email to my hard drive. After I have sent a message back to the sender, I add the word “Replied” to the subject line, so I know I have already answered the sender to thank them for their pictures.

I have often edited the body of an email to add a note to myself about action I need to take, or information I’ll need when replying to the sender, etc.

HINT: Make sure if you have edited the subject line or body before replying to the email, that you remove the edits when you reply if you don’t want the sender seeing them.

I’ve been using an external monitor with my laptop for a couple of years and would have a hard time living without the extra screen real estate. The multiple monitor feature built into Windows XP is great, but not well documented within Windows. I struggled for a long time to try and figure out how to control where my start bar and desktop items would display. Windows displays them on your “Primary Monitor”.  However, sometimes my laptop screen was the primary monitor and sometimes my external monitor was primary, and there did not appear to be any logic to it.

I accidentally discovered the secret to mastering multiple monitors while helping a new co-worker.  Here’s the secret: make sure only one display is active. Then, move that display to the monitor you want as your primary monitor, using the function keys on your laptop keyboard. Then attach the second monitor in your windows monitor settings dialogue box.

If you send emails that contain proprietary information, its wise to mark them confidential. In some business settings, failing to mark proprietary information as confidential could jeopardize the business’s right to enforce its exclusive rights to the information.

Save time by creating a signature in Outlook that contains only your confidentiality notice. You can then insert it into the body of an email with two mouse clicks.  The notice I’ve seen a co-worker use reads: CONFIDENTIAL and PROPRIETARY – DO NOT SHARE.

You could do the same thing for any other block of text you need to insert often into an email.