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Outlook Phone Messages Rule...Step 2

We're going to use the Rules Wizard in Outlook to create a really simple rule - one that moves any messages with the text "CLLR" into a folder for phone messages. Hopefully, this will inspire you to take a closer look at Rules and see how powerful they can be in helping you organize your emails and info. Let's do this.

1. Go to Tools > Rules and Alerts
2. Click on New Rule
3. You should get a dialog box that looks something like the one pictured here. I'm using Outlook 2007 for these screen shots, they look quite similar to 2003. If you have an older version, you should still be able to follow along.
4. Click once on the predefined definition that says "Move messages with specific words in the subject to a folder".
5. Then, on the lower portion of the dialog box, click on the blue "specific words" link that will lead to another dialog box. Here you want to enter a key word that will trigger the rule. You can use "Caller" but careful with that one since it's a real word that might not just have to do with a phone caller, how about something that's not a real word like "CLLR" - whatever you want - I'll let you decide on that one. (Click ADD, then OK to close.)
6. Now click on the blue hyperlink text that says "Specific  folder". That will open another dialog that will allow you to choose the folder we created yesterday. (Click OK to close.)
7. You're almost done - you can follow the wizard as it  guides you through the remaining dialog boxes - which are quite self explanatory and shouldn't require too much input from you other than an exception to the rule if you want one (isn't there a saying about that?).
8. At the end, be sure to name your rule and turn it on. Your screen might look something like the one pictured right.

That's it for today. Tomorrow, we tackle the receptionist - let's hope she's not bigger than you are.

Making it Stop…Step 1 - Create a New Folder in Outlook

Ok, ok, you twisted my arm. Let's do this in baby steps, together. The first thing we want to do is create a new folder in Outlook for your Phone Messages to get filed into.

• Open Outlook
• RIGHT-click on your Inbox to select New Folder.
• Name it Phone Messages or whatever you want. If you want it at the top of your subfolders call it "aPhone Messages"(you can also drag it out of the Inbox folder and make it a main folder under Mailbox).

That's it for today. Next time we tackle the rule – the one that tells Outlook to move Phone Messages into your new folder.

Please make it stop...

Nothing hurts my hard-wired heart more than walking into an office to the site of these pink relics. Sometimes they're like Dead People, I see them - EVERYWHERE. They're on desks, under desks, in briefcases, on spikes, on my lap...it totally kills me. The one place I never see them is in the garbage. Once, I threw one into a garbage can and It spit it back at me. I'm not kidding. It's just soooo OLD - there's really no excuse for this system of communication.

Wouldn't it be great if your receptionist sent you an email that filtered into a folder called "Phone Messages"? And from there you could open the message, see who called and maybe, if she was kind enough, she would have attached their full Contact Card from your firm Address Book with the latest phone numbers and maybe even their picture? Wouldn't that be great? What if you were out of the office, and getting your email on your smartphone and you got the message there too? And what if you lost Riley Brown's phone number but you know that you once had a phone message from him and you could search for his name and find it? And what if you could easily take a new callers name and phone number and easily create an Outlook contact for them? *looOOOOoong sigh* oh to dream.

Outlook: Color Code Your Life

I had the pleasure of meeting with one of the coolest attorneys I know today. He recently relocated right here to Orlando and is in the process of opening a small office. He has a shiny new laptop - and not to mention a really hot assistant named Bella! - so I was throwing some tips around when one of them sparked this reaction "What!? You gotta tell people about this! It'll change lives!" Hehehe...I got a kick out of that and certainly do hope that it does   SOMETHING for you even if it doesn't change your life dramatically. We were poking around in Glen's Outlook calendar when I noticed that it looked a bit dull, it had no color. I'm a visualist so I've set up my calendar to take advantage of Outlooks color coding system. Glen's calendar, on the other hand, totally bored me. I commented on it and he said that the categories Outlook offers aren't useful for him; so I showed him how he can rename the category colors to suit his life and practice. First, in case you don't know, when you create an  appointment, you can assign it a color (called a Label in Outlook). It's very easy to customize the Label list. You can either go to Edit > Label > Edit Labels (not kidding) or you can look for the icon on your toolbar that looks like a little Rubik's Cube and click on it. Edit and save. Let me know if your QOL has improved.

A Laptop Must-Have: Extra Battery Power

On the road again, I've finally found some time to paste a post. I'm back in Nebraska working with some of my favorite clients at their two-attorney, one-assistant firm. It's not easy getting here, it takes four take-offs and landings; two of those on prop planes that could just make you cry. I was looking forward to the time to get some work done on the computer, which I've not had a lot of time to do. Normally, I can't do much of that because the battery life on my laptop just doesn't last long enough. Well, a couple of weeks ago I was in Williamsburg, Virginia for the spring meeting of the LPM Section of the ABA. I was there with the rest of the TECHSHOW Board for the first installment of our 2008 planning geekends. Between the likes of John Simek and Tom Mighell there can be a lot of gadgetry happening in one small room. Debbie Foster - henceforth referred to as DebStar - pulled out the next must-have in my tech arsenal. She slapped an unassuming silver slab onto the table. Naturally, I high-eyebrowed her and asked what it was. She looked at me as if I had slapped her, "it's a battery for my laptop," she replied with that duh-you-call-yourself-a-techie-look. I don't know where I've been because I've never heard about universal notebook batteries. She went on to tell me that it adds 6 hours of time to her laptop. I IMMEDIATELY hopped on the internet and ordered this APC UPB60 Universal Notebook Battery because that's the one DebStar had.