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How to find what you need to get the job done!
Ask my wife sometime and you’ll probably find out that my short term memory has a lot to be desired, and is in fact practically non-existent. I could easily have four drinking glasses lying around the house at any given time and never even realize it. Her number one response when I ask where I put something is invariably, “Where did you have it last?” I typically respond to this with something akin to, “If I knew where that was, I wouldn’t be asking.”
Going off to work in the morning can be a tragic event for me, especially if I were to, say… leave my laptop at the house, forget my lunch, or leave without my pants. Okay, that’s probably a picture best left to horror writers like Stephen King, but you get the picture.
I’ve learned to cope with my absent-mindedness and lack of caffeine by piling things up on the dining room table and putting my keys on top. I figure if I can’t leave the house without the keys, then I can’t leave the house without noticing the pile of stuff underneath the keys. You do need to be careful, though, so you don’t snatch up your kids’ homework. How embarrassing is it for a kid to go to school with an excuse like “My dad ate my homework”? Okay, I never ate the homework, but I have had the chance to scan it and e-mail it to my son’s teacher with a little “oops, sorry about that”.
But you can probably relate to situations in your life where you might feel as absent-minded as I. Just try finding an e-mail sometime that you know you have, but seems to be gone. Feel like pulling your hair out by the roots?
Don’t fret, Sweet Polly. “There’s no need to fear, Productive U is here!”
Having the right coping mechanism in place can really go a long way to being more productive with your e-mail program or mobile device. Let’s start by tackling some tips on Outlook first.
Have you ever searched for a needle in a haystack, or anywhere else for that matter? Finding a message in your e-mail can be a time-consuming task, particularly if you don’t remember when you received it or who it was from. Outlook has a search box available for you to enter text for a quick search. The results will not be pretty and will likely include more than you want, but it will be fast. For instructions, click on the link for “Quick and Dirty Way to Find Messages” in this blog entry.
Microsoft Outlook also offers an Advanced Find feature with a large number of options. In our tip labeled “A Beginner’s Guide to Finding a Message“, we explore a few ways to get you started refining your search for messages.
If you find yourself doing the same searches over and over again, there are a couple of solutions available to you. You can either save your search from the Advanced Find dialog, or you can use a Search Folder. Search Folders are very similar to saved searches. They show you information that meets specific criteria, but the big difference is it looks kind of like a folder and can remember the way you like to view your results. You can find the instructions for these two under links called “Saving Your Search” and “Search Folders“.
If you own a BlackBerry, you probably feel like your thumb will fall off before you find that agenda your boss e-mailed to you last week. These ultra-portable brain containers have all the capacity to store on-the-go information for us, but much like remembering where I put my glass down, your drink (or, in this case, e-mail) can be elusive.
We understand that when you’re in that business meeting and looking for something, time is often important, and the faster you can find it, the better. In our tip “Quick Searching on Your BlackBerry“, we cover two fast searches you can do to speed things up.
You can also search with criteria or parameters on your device, and it usually produces a more precise result than the quick search methods. Click on “Searching for Messages on Your BlackBerry” for more details.
If you still need more help wrangling your Simon Bar Sinister, just remember “When Polly’s in trouble, I am not slow. It’s hip, hip, hip and away I go…” to this week’s featured eTraining class, “Dealing with Large Volumes of E-mail”. You can find a link to the schedule for this class in this post at www.productiveUpodcast.com.
Until next week… Not Plane, nor bird, not even frog. It’s little ole me, Underdog.
Tips:
Quick and Dirty Way to Find Messages
A Beginner’s Guide to Finding a Message
Saving Your Search” and “Search Folders
Quick Searching on Your BlackBerry
Searching for Messages on Your BlackBerry
Here’s a link to the original Underdog Cartoon Video
Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum
