Is your inbox becoming cluttered and out-of-control?

An out-of-control inbox can have negative effects on your overall work productivity, stress, and frankly… sanity. That’s why we rounded up a few tips and tricks you can use for managing email overload as well as preventing it in the first place.

Take advantage of these often-overlooked features in Outlook 365 to better organize your emails and regain control of your inbox!

If you want to learn more, or need assistance setting up these features in your Outlook, please don’t hesitate to contact us today!

Set up and move complex and non-critical emails into a To-Do Folder

You can create a structure of folders for organizing emails in Outlook 365. Folders are a great way for not only archiving emails, but also managing incoming emails as tasks to eliminate them from view in your inbox.

The benefit in creating folders is that it allows you to avoid an overwhelming and cluttered inbox. Important emails will no longer be pushed down the inbox as new emails come in at a steady stream and get mixed up.

Use Outlook Task List

You can set reminders to take care of emails before a set deadline. This can come in handy when some emails come in that don’t require an immediate response.

You can set up reminders for yourself by clicking on the task list icon and then setting a due date with a date and time for receiving the reminder.

After this is set up, you can hover your mouse over the task list icon to see a quick view of your task list, organized by due date.

One Click Clean-Up

If you have been on vacation and just now returning to work, you may notice a flooded inbox, and the daunting task of sifting through it all becomes a reality.

With Outlook’s clean-up function, you can reduce the number of emails you have to sift through in just a few clicks. The clean-up function eliminates all email replies that are duplicated in a later thread, allowing you to read a single thread instead of lots of individual emails.

Automate your inbox with Rules

Unfortunately, not all emails come with an ‘unsubscribe’ link. Most email day after day are just distractions and inhibit our overall effectiveness.

You can use Outlook’s rules function to skip the inbox and send those emails straight to the trash bin – or to another folder for review.