Have you ever received an e-mail that looks real but you weren’t quite sure?  If so, don’t open it.  Lately I’ve received dozens of messages that look like they’re from our IT support department.  They looked so convincing that I almost opened the first one.  Fortunately I didn’t do it.

Spammers are a clever bunch (I’m being very nice) and can make a very nasty message look like it’s from your own organization.  Watch the video below to learn a quick way to look “behind the scenes” at the e-mail header to see who really sent that questionable message.

If you create the same e-mail on a regular basis, then you will like the Outlook e-mail template tool.

Although Outlook’s e-mail template function is hard to find, it is very easy to use. Watch this short video to learn how to do it.

Hey there masochists early adopters it’s official, the beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 is now available for download. All 684MB of it! Just start it up and go have lunch.

I’m not quite ready to give it a spin, but I have to sooner or later to start preparing for  the latest version of Master Your Workload with Outlook.  The words Beta and Microsoft in one sentence make me just a little concerned. Maybe I’ve been watching too many Apple commercials.

Microsoft recommends that you uninstall your previous versions of Office and not use it on a primary machine. Let’s see, which one should I use? Oh yes the free download is for Windows XP SP3 and later. Meaning if you didn’t upgrade to Service Pack 3, then don’t bother.

Personally I’m about to take the Windows 7 plunge I won’t be testing the new Office flavor until after the dust settles. I attended a Microsoft sponsored in-depth Windows 7 demo yesterday and was favorably impressed. The Koolaid was tasty too.

Here’s the link:  Office 2010 Beta Download

If you try it please tell us about your experience.

- Bob

Your daily to do list can seem like a burden if you use it as an inventory of everything you want to accomplish between now and the end of time.

Too many people feel as if they accomplish nothing because they’re unable to complete dozens of tasks in a day.  Frustrated at the end of the day, they re-write their task list wishing that the time to get it all done tomorrow will  magically appear.  Doing this day in and day out is unnecessary work, frustrating and futile.

Instead,  schedule only what you can complete in a day.  See my post about to do lists from earlier this week for a more detailed discussion. To avoid overbooking yourself, schedule tasks in advance on  days when when you will have time to do them.  This is called horizontal planning.

Use the Task Timeline to View Your Task List Over Time

Outlook has a little-used view called the Task Timeline that gives you a clear picture of how your workload is balanced over time.  In one glance it will show you where you are overloaded.  Here’s a quick video that shows you how to use it:

In our earlier article about performing an e-mail audit I promised to demonstrate how to use Outlook’s rules to automatically move your Like to Have messages to specific folders. Outlook gives you two ways to create rules. One is very robust but rather complex. The other is quick, simple and applies to most users’ needs.

Watch this Outlook Time Saver to learn the quick way to create a rules.

If you find yourself deleting a large number of e-mails each day, it is a good idea to take a few minutes to do a quick E-mail Audit to assess the sources.  Armed with this information you can take action to reduce your e-mail bloat so that you can focus more time and energy on the things that are important to you.

Here’s a quick video about how to do it:

Here are the steps:

Sort your inbox by the From (sender) column. In most e-mail clients just click From in the column header.
Look at each sender and decide if their messages fall into only one of these four broad categories. Be very honest with yourself about whether or not you really need these messages.

Microsoft has been giving us sneak peeks at the new Outlook (and the rest of Office) 2010 over the past several months. Recently they released this video that gives as an even closer look under the hood. It hints about some very cool features that can streamline your e-mail management.

The mail management features that look very promising, but the one that has me really excited is are the “Quick Steps” function. Quick Steps appear to be like actions or macros that give you the ability to record common processes that involve multiple steps. By having a one-click method to convert e-mails to tasks, appointments and contacts your routine processing will go much faster.

Of course as of today 2010 is still vaporware. The beta version is supposed to be available in early November. I plan to begin using it on a test machine right away to get started on the Outlook 2010 eCourse.

If you know of any other 2010 features, official or rumors, please share them in the comments.

Yesterday I received calls from three clients  asking about an e-mail purportedly from Microsoft about a critical update for Outlook.   The Subject line message is from Microsoft Update Center and the subject line “Microsoft has released an update for Microsoft Outlook“.

When I checked my inboxI noticed that I received two of these messages.  At first glance they look like the real thing.

It’s a virus…don’t open it!

If you received one of these (or something similar)  DELETE IT.  The e-mail contains a fake software patch th t is actually a virus that attempts to steal login details and passwords.  This is pretty nasty stuff.

This same e-mail was making the rounds back in June.  Just like th e Black Plague of old, it seems to have come back.

For more information see this article from The SophosLabs Blog  that explains the spam in more detail. If you’re  an insomniac really curious read this detailed post from TalkTEch Live.

Bottom line.  Microsoft doesn’t send messages like this, no matter how real they look.  If you are ever uncertain about an e-mail like this copy and paste the subject line into the Google search box and chances are you will see a warning from someone.  When in doubt delete.

Enjoy your weekend.

- Bob

Your time is your most valuable and finite asset.  It’s up to you to protect it.

My morning ritual starts with reading Dilbert, Scott Adams’ brilliant comic strip.  As you can imagine I was pleased that his topic was about issues with Outlook.

While Dilbert’s example is extreme, it shows the plight of many workers who fall prey to others using up your time.  The ability to use Outlook (or any other collaborative calendar system) to easily set aside the time of others is both a time saver and a time waster, depending upon how you use it.

There’s nothing  cheaper than other people’s time

When it’s easy to take another person’s time it becomes less valuable.  It’s always there for the taking.  Much like thieves who blow their loot then go back for more.  Like Dilbert the victim feels as if they have no value. If you give it away freely it will have no value to others and you will have none left for yourself.

Use Outlook to Protect Your Time

If you’ve attended one of my eCourses, workshops or coaching sessions then you’ve heard me preach about blocking time for your important activities.  In a corporate network environment like Dilbert’s it’s basic survival.

Fortunately Outlook (and Notes) and I’m sure other systems) makes it very easy to protect your time.  Just create appointments with yourself for your important (by this I mean high pay-off activities that add value) activities.

Make sure you mark the time as “Busy” in the appointment window.  This will show your time as busy in the scheduling tab of the time thief’s new appointment window.

Like a thief casing a house to rob they’ll see you have a security system and move on to another victim.

Do you ever feel frustrated or just plain angry at yourself because you spend too much time looking for things (often on you desk)? Do you have the same problem wit your stored e-mail? If so you’re not alone. In fact it’s one of the major pains expressed by my clients. Although computers are very good at finding things, the sheer volume of stored e-mail can make it difficult to find something important quickly.

This is further exacerbated when you have a large quantity of Outlook folders. The more places you have to put things the more places you have to look. If you have 50 folders (and I’ve seen people with hundreds) you may have to physically look in five or six related places to find something. You have a computer, let it do the work for a change.

Here’s what you do:

Use a bare minimum of Outlook folders. Ideally have just one folder called “Completed E-mail” or something similar (please don’t store your old e-mail in your Inbox). If you must have more try to limit them to four or five. If you already have multiple folders, keep them for now and crate a new one for your completed e-mail. I started doing this a few years ago out of sheer laziness. I created on folder titled “Customer Communications” and dragged all “processed” e-mails from customers (that I wanted to keep) into it. I thought that later I’d go back and create sub folders for each customer. I never did. Didn’t have to.

When you need to find something in your folder you have two options; sort or search.

To sort your list simply click the appropriate column heading. The first time you click a heading the list will be sorted in ascending order, the next time descending and so on. You can sort by From, Subject or Date.

If your needs are more robust you can search within the folder. Type whatever text you want to find in the Look For box and click Find Now. By using the Options on the far right you can either search just the subject or the entire message. For really heavy lifting the Options box includes the Advanced Find tool that can really narrow it down. Also you have the ability to save a search as a pseudo folder if you do this search a lot.

I used Outlook 2003 as my example above. Outlook 2007 works exaclty the same when you sort. The search tool looks a little different. In the far right hand corner just above the e-mail messages is a small box that says Search (folder name). Just type your text in that box and Outlook will do work. The little down arrow to the right contains your search options.

Time for an apology. Earlier this week I said that I’d do a “How-to” about managing stored e-mails using Outlook categories. This requires creating a custom e-mail view. It’s something I often do in a few minutes at peoples’ desks. When I sat down to write it out I realized that it required a lengthy explanation with multiple screen shots which would take hours. Realizing that the vast majority of my readers probably wouldn’t take the time to do this I decided to hold off. If you were really counting on this please contact me directly.