Table of content

• Create Selective Notifications
• Automate meeting responses (Windows only)
• Make a Search Folder
• Modify Outlook Mobile swipes

1. Create Selective Notifications

We can’t talk about email or focus without recommending that you turn off email notifications. Email notifications kill focus and cause overwhelm.

Turning off email notifications causes FOMO and is difficult for some. They are fine with disabling them, but feel obligated to their boss, spouse, or important client.

Selective notifications disables all but certain people or email types.

How to:

On Mobile:

• Tap an Outlook contact. You can tap the Star icon in the top right. The contact is now a Favorite.
• Change Notifications to Favorite People in Outlook Mobile. Only those people will be notified via mobile.

On Windows:

• Right-click an email from the person to notify
• Rules > Create Rule…
• Select a sound to play in the New Item Alert window.

On Mac:

• Tools > Rules
• The + sign in the Client Rules section creates a new Rule.
• Choose the desired contact and do the following: section select Display Notifications

2. Automate meeting responses (Windows only)

Have you ever sent a meeting invitation and then had your inbox flooded with responses from people accepting or declining?

The thing is, you can see it all in the Meeting. You don’t need people clicking “Accept.” What about the exceptions: did someone decline? Did someone accept or decline with a note?

You can have it so that a simple “Accept” with no comments is deleted.

How to do it:

• Navigate to File > Options > Mail > Tracking.
• Check Process meeting requests, responses, and polls automatically
• Ccheck Update tracking information, then delete non-comment responses.

3. Make a Search Folder

This is another odd naming situation. In Windows, it’s called a Search Folder, in Mac, a Smart Folder. Who knows?

Do you frequently search or wish to link emails stored in different locations?Search or Smart Folder is a saved search with one click.

You’re looking for a frequent sender — a vendor or a coworker. Maybe you look for emails with a specific project code or severity.

How to do it:

Mac:

Perform a search and click Save Search. Give it a meaningful name and it will appear in the sidebar’s Smart Folders (Mac) section.

Windows:

Right-click the sidebar’s Search Folders section. New Search Folder Use one of the pre-defined searches or create your own by selecting Create a custom Search Folder at the bottom.

It will appear in the sidebar’s Search Folders section.

4. Modify Outlook Mobile swipes

Mobile devices are fine for email triage but not for email management.

You can quickly delete or archive emails and save the ones you want to read for when you get back to your desk.

But it takes a lot of tapping, which is where swipe actions come in.

When looking at a list of emails, you know which ones to delete, which ones to archive, and which ones to snooze or mark read or unread.

Swipe actions allow you to do this without opening the email.

Swiping right deletes the message, while swipe left archives it. This, too, can be customized in Outlook.

How to do it:

Setup > Swipe Options in Outlook Mobile

• For left and right, choose:
• Delete
• Archive
• Flag/Unflag
• Check/Uncheck
• Move
• Snooze
• Read & save
• Nothing