QuietSpacing

Microsoft Outlook is the modern-day DayTimer.  Almost everyone in the business world today uses it either in a standalone setting or as part of Microsoft Exchange.  Whether it’s managing e-mail, scheduling, tasks or all of the above, Outlook has become a ubiquitous part of our daily life.

The Resulting Problem

One of the downsides to the explosion of electronic communications facilitated by software like Outlook, is that the underlying files within these programs become bloated with stored information.  Whether data is contained in an e-mail in your Inbox (or other sub-folder), an event scheduled on your calendar, or stored as part of a task, it is all encapsulated in Outlook – within the very program itself.  If that’s a bit confusing, imagine saving every document you craft in Word within Word itself, versus somewhere else on your hard drive or network drive.  Eventually, Word would start to “fill up” with all those letters and memos that you’ve written. 

This is exactly what happens with Microsoft Outlook.  Whenever you store an e-mail in any Outlook folder, schedule an event or create a task, all of that information, as well as any related attachments, are all stored in Outlook itself..  The end result of this behavior is that Outlook begins to buckle under its own size, which we usually experience as a slowing down of the program.  (Oh, and if you use Outlook via Exchange in a corporate network, multiply this effect by the number of people doing the same thing on your network!)  Moreover, as the Outlook .pst file becomes increasing large, you increase the chances of corrupting the data in the file.  Now you probably (hopefully!) have a backup somewhere that’s reasonably current, but who wants to go through the hassle?

One Solution: The “Save As” Function

E-mail hygiene is a huge issue today.  This post will focus on one specific, but significant, component of getting e-mail better managed – saving the important information somewhere other than in the .pst file. 

Open an e-mail and click on the File command in the menu bar.  You’ll notice the option to “Save As.”  This allows you to save an e-mail in a number of formats and in a location other than the .pst file.  If we view e-mail as a form of correspondence - as I promoted in an earlier post (http://www.quietspacing.com/2009/08/03/what-to-do-with-it-all-treating-e-mail-as-correspondence/ -  then we should just be saving e-mails in the same fashion we save other documents (like letters, spreadsheets, etc.).  Assuming that filing methodology is already established for your other documents, either through your own doing or that of your employer, you can use “Save As” to file these communiques in the same manner.  Makes sense right?  Why not just store all related items together in the same way!

Now we’ll look at the technical part to make sure we achieve our intended result.  When you click File and select Save As, you will see the same familiar window that opens whenever you save other items.  Navigate to the location you would save any other item related to this matter using the buttons on the left side of the pop-up window. 

Now, look down at the bottom of the window.  You will notice that the Subject line for the e-mail/event/task is automatically placed in the “File name” area.  You are free to change the name in accordance with your own or your company’s file naming convention. 

Below the “File name” area, you will see an area titled “Save as type” with a drop down arrow to the right.  The default setting is “Text Only.”  That is NOT the one you want.  The best selection is “Outlook Message Format – Unicode.”  This will save the contents of the e-mail, including ALL attachments, in the location you have selected, in a format that that will visually tell you it’s an e-mail. 

When you’re done naming the e-mail and selecting the Outlook Message Format – Unicode “Save as type,” click Save and a copy of the e-mail and everything attached to it will reside in the location you selected.  You can now delete the original e-mail, freeing up that space in your .pst file.

To confirm that this will work for you, go to the location you saved the e-mail using Windows Explorer.  You’ll see an e-mail message envelope with the file name you chose.  Double click on it and it’ll open up the e-mail with any attachments still attached.

A Related Solution: The “Save Attachments” Function

You can also save just the attachments from an e-mail, instead of the body of the e-mail itself, by selecting File | Save Attachments.  In the Save Attachment window that pops up, navigate to the location you want the attachments saved to and confirm the “File name” and “Save as type” before hitting Save.  The result is that copies of the attachments are saved as separate documents from the e-mail (which is not saved in that location). 

This works well, for example, with documents that are going through a drafting process and transmitted back and forth via e-mail.  The transmittal e-mail is of little importance and can be deleted, along with its attachments, once the attachments have been copied elsewhere.

Slimming Up Your Outlook .PST File

Using the Save As and Save Attachments function is a terrific way to deal with the issue of reducing the bulk of your .pst file.  It won’t solve all the issues presented with the enormous amount of e-mail we deal with from day to day.  However, you’ll find that storing e-mails and attachments in the same location as other related documents will make finding things easier and more efficient, in addition to speeding up the response times you experience when working in Outlook.

Good luck!

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Just enjoying a lovely fall afternoon stuck in the office porting data from my recently-failed laptop (backlight went black two days ago) to my new Toshiba netbook.  I’m excited to see where this technology is right now and I didn’t want to drop real money on a high-end laptop until Windows 7 is out (and probably SP1 to that!).  Oh, and I can’t go Macbook because I train people in the best uses of Microsoft Outlook so showing up with a Mac creates a bit of a credibility problem!

“Reply To” a Third Party

But back to my point – how to use the “Reply To” feature in Outlook to have replies to an e-mail you send returned to someone else.  The best use of this feature is when you are charged with making the announcement or request regarding some event or matter – say a client/customer conference – but your assistant (or another third party) is charged with managing all the details of the event/matter.  For example, they may need RSVP information or to coordinate the content or collateral to be distributed at the event, etc.  The last thing you want is a bunch of replies coming to your e-mail address that you must then forward to the third party or to allow them “access” to your e-mail so they can check for those items themselves (especially true when the third party is not your assistant.)  You want all further correspondence on this matter to go directly to the person handling the details.

Good news! There’s a nifty little solution built right into Microsoft Outlook to achieve exactly that result.  Just open a new e-mail message and prepare the Subject line and content of the message per your needs.  Then, before sending it, click on View and select Options.  Under the Delivery Options area of the screen that comes up, check the box next to “Have replies sent to” and complete the associated box with the third party’s e-mail address.  (Note, if you don’t know it, you can click on the Select Names button and search for it assuming it is in your personal or shared contacts records.).  Click the Close button at the bottom right of the screen, then click Send on the e-mail itself and off it goes into the ether. The best part is that anytime anyone clicks the Reply (or Reply All) button, the responses will all go to the person you selected and will not clutter up your Inbox.

Feel the Leverage

It’s a neat feature to leverage when you need someone with name recognition sending out the e-mail, but someone else will be doing coordinating.  You see, there are things that e-mail is go for!

Back to porting data…

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Stuff is coming at us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from all over the globe in today’s always-on world.  Not only do we have to process more information, but we also seem to end up with more things crowding their way onto our schedule and task lists.  Whether it’s filling out the coversheet to our TPS reports or getting treats for the ikebana “Tweet-Up,” there’s always more to manage and more to do.  The result is a sense of stress and mental (and physical) exhaustion.

An Exercise in Sanity

I often work with my coaching clients on this issue.  Many of these people are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things that end up on their plate, so the following is an exercise I ask them to perform in an effort for them to regain some sense of command over their world:

Step 1

Collect everything together in one place so you can work through all the demands on your time and energy.  (Also, note that it’s best to do this exercise when you start with a clear mind – first thing in the morning or on a weekend.)

Step 2

Review your short- and long-term priorities both professionally and personally.  If you can’t list them off the top of your head, create that list now.

Step 3

Begin working through the stack of items (and your calendar) asking yourself which of these three categories each item/event can be placed:

• Eliminate:  These are items that don’t directly drive the objectives you reviewed/established in Step 2 above.  Generally, they linger on task lists and calendars, consuming valuable mental and physical resources (e.g., energy and time) with no obvious benefit to be derived.  My advice is to assume everything on your task list and calendar fits into this category until definitively established otherwise.
• Delegate:  These are items that do, in fact, meet one of your objectives, but could (relatively) easily be performed by someone else.  Get these into production by delegating them.  You might have to train or mentor that person, but it’ll pay dividends in the long run if you move this onto their list/calendar.
• Prioritize/Re-prioritize/De-prioritize:  These are the items/events that directly advance your objectives and can only reasonably be done by you.  This should be a very short list since most things can/should be eliminated or delegated, leaving you to attend to the highest level matters.  You should now prioritize these items in terms of what drives the most value to your objectives and re-prioritize (or de-prioritize) those things that are more wish list than value-add efforts.

The net result is that you have cleansed your task list and calendar of things that just take up space and that can be done by others.  You are left, I hope, with the high value-add items that directly contribute to your success as defined by your objectives.

Maintaining Sanity

Do this exercise at least once per month.  After the first cleansing, you’ll find it is quick and easy to complete because you are now more accustomed to making these decisions and because the pile will be smaller.  The end-game here is that you will have a much firmer grasp on your world and no longer feel like you are hanging on by your fingernails!

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If Success is a Feeling, not a result, and Accomplishment Produces that Feeling, then Productivity results in Success.

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Last week a Stanford University study concluded what we’ve anecdotally known for a long time – we mere mortals don’t multi-task well.  (See the Stanford article here http://ow.ly/oOTB).  Not to lambast Stanford for their efforts, but consider the last time you were in someone’s office trying to have a conversation while the person on the other side of desk was checking their e-mail.  If that’s not convincing enough, consider sitting in the passenger seat of a car while the driver negotiates traffic and texts back and forth with a colleague.  That’ll get your blood pressure elevated for sure!

All in all, it’s great to have an esteemed learning institution validate the notion that multi-tasking produces less than optimal results.  In today’s 24/7 global working environments, so many people (with and without authority) consider “on it” the only way to accomplish what needs to get done, preferring the idea that multiple “on its” mean multipliers in productivity.  This is simply not the case. 

With multi-tasking functionally debunked as an effective means of producing results, what other options do we have for achieving that goal?

Re-Enter Batch Processing

Henry Ford figured out an effective way to get things produced over 100 years ago – batch processing.  That is, group like tasks together because repeating the same task over and over in one “batch” increases productivity.  Of course, he applied the concept to the manufacturing line, but the underlying premise holds true for any group of tasks that share similar actions for their completion.

Batch Processing Defined

Batch processing is fundamentally a workflow behavior - a way (or “process”) for getting things done.  To batch process means to gather together like or similar tasks and act upon them at the same time.  In effect, it’s working through a stack of items in a repetitive way until you have completed the batch.

Take processing you physical mail as an example.  Physical mail is delivered in a batch by the post office each day.  Most people grab the stack of mail (a series of similar items), open each one, toss the junk out, and sort the meaningful items in some logical manner.  That’s batch processing.  The alternative would be to grab one piece of mail from the stack, open it and then make three un-related phone calls and attend a meeting or two before grabbing the next piece of mail.  What if something in the mail related to one of those phone calls or meetings!? 

Besides that, it just “seems” inefficient to process one piece of mail at a time.  Yet, when you’re multi-tasking, that’s exactly what you’re doing from a workflow processing point of view. It’s just more efficient and effective to batch process things whenever possible.

Things to Batch Process

To get you started on batch processing the stuff that pours into your workday, I’ve pulled together a list of things off the top of my head that can be batch processed. Give one or more of these a try to see if you find it a more efficient way to plow through your work.

• E-mail.  If you read my previous post on this, you’ll know that I consider e-mail just another form of correspondence.  Thus, it should be batch processed just like the physical mail example above.  Instead of responding to each and every e-mail that comes into the Inbox, I advise that you check it frequently – two or three times an hour – and process what’s in there.  Powering through 5, 20, 50 e-mails all at once is far more efficient than doing each one separately.  Moreover, many of the e-mails in any one batch will cancel out other e-mails in the same batch given people’s penchant for Reply All and Half-Thought Sends (you know who you are).  The net result of batch processing your e-mail is you will move through it faster and create fewer yourself for others to read, which makes them more productive too!  (For more on my views about e-mail processing attend one of my Power Processing Your E-mail online seminars – http://ow.ly/oPwb – or read my related posts – http://ow.ly/oPxm and http://ow.ly/oPzH.)
• Questions.  One of the most difficult things to do for yourself and others is to group questions together into a batch.  We desperately want the answer right now!  Yet, constantly running down the hall to interrupt someone to ask a question devastates focus at both ends.  Regardless of whether you are the one asking or the one answering these questions, agree to set aside a period each day to ask and have answered all questions.  The benefits of this are several-fold. First, questions will get answered in a timely fashion.  Second, many questions will evaporate in the interim either because they get answered or become irrelevant as new information streams into your workday.  Third, both parties will remain more focused on the task at hand with the interruptions eliminated, which means double the productivity gain.
• Errands.  Ask any stay-at-home parent if they run errands one at a time and they will uniformly ask if you’ve been getting enough sleep.  Yet, at work, we often charge off on a “must-do” errand (personal or professional) just to charge off an hour later to do a similar thing.  Whether you need to move about inside or outside of the office, stack your errands in a pile near your workspace and do as many of them at once as possible.  This includes moving archival materials to storage!
• Phone Calls.  Another lost art is batch processing phone calls.  Before the advent of voice mail, we received little message slips that included the pertinent information for calls we had missed.  Many of us would sit down and return those calls in batch form.  Now, because we get a blinking light or, worse/better, an e-mail with the message attached (and possibly transcribed), we react to them individually.  No need.  Carve out a set period or periods each day (10:30 AM and 3:00 PM?) to return calls.  Some would even recommend doing do it over the lunch hour or before/after business hours.
• Social Media.  There’s an entire post/article here on the value proposition for social media in the business setting. However, for our purposes, the point is to review social media connections in batches.  Whether it’s directly via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn or via an aggregator such as HelloTxt, HootSuite or TweetDeck, I advise that you peruse these communiques only once or twice a day for short periods of time.  Look for things of interest, act upon them and disregard the rest.

Seek Out Batches

Many of the tasks we must accomplish each day can be grouped into batches for more efficient processing.  I encourage you to identify additional activities that can be grouped and accomplished in batches together.  My experience is that it’s more productive and efficient, which are key components to feeling in command of your work environment.

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