ATOI365D#Office365Challenge Do you get super annoyed when people send emails with non-descriptive subjects? I do, and I’ve been modifying my email subjects for years.

Day:  314 of 365, 51 left
Tools:  Office 365, Outlook
Description:  Edit Email Subjects and Add Notes
Audience:  All

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Outlook still is the place where we manage our day to day work. As much as I love SharePoint – and everything it offers to ‘enable us to achieve more’, we’re not quite there yet are we?

Knowing how important, search, sorting and tagging of content is, I always pay close attention to the subjects I use for emails. However… I cannot change how other people go about this. Here are a couple of tips I use in Outlook to make it work for me:

Email Subjects:

Do you get emails with very non-descriptive subjects? I do – often. Maybe I’m more aware of this as I work with many clients and projects at the same time. When I receive emails with subjects which pretty much says nothing – I immediately change them:

In versions older than 2016, you could just open the email, change the subject and save. In 2016 it’s changed slightly.

  1. Open the mail
  2. Expand the caret (click on dropdown to open the subject line)
  3. Change the subject
  4. Save the email

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I always add my client / project name in CAPS in the beginning of the subject:

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Adding Notes to Emails:

Adding notes to emails used to involve sending it to yourself again. You can however make changes to a received mail and save it. In the email under the Move Actions, click on More Move Actions > Edit Message:

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Make the changes to the message and save. I always use another colour and add my initials as I might open the email later and forget those were my notes (yup – that’s what naughty 40’s does to you 🙂 ). Just be careful as well of forwarding this on again – if those notes were meant for your eyes only.

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Pretty cool right?! Join me tomorrow for some more Outlook management tips to start the new year with.

Overview of my challenge: As an absolute lover of all things Microsoft, I’ve decided to undertake the challenge, of writing a blog every single day, for the next 365 days. Crazy, I know. And I’ll try my best, but if I cannot find something good to say about Office 365 and the Tools it includes for 365 days, I’m changing my profession. So let’s write this epic tale of “Around the Office in 365 Days”. My ode to Microsoft Office 365.
Keep in mind that these tips and tricks do not only apply to Office 365 – but where applicable, to the overall Microsoft Office Suite and SharePoint.