Some of the "smart working" experts recommend not filing emails in various folders, but using categories instead. The advantages are that each item can be in more than one category, so if someone from Department X emails you about Subject Y, you can use both X and Y categories to sort the email (then you can find all emails from Dept X or all emails about subject Y).
Anyway, if you use categories instead of folders here are a couple of things you might find handy.
Firstly, I've categorised all of my contacts in Outlook, and created a rule that assigns any messages I receive to the sender's categories. To do this, firstly copy the following VBA code into a module and an Outlook VBA project:
Code: Select all
Sub ApplyContactCategories(Item As Outlook.MailItem)
On Error GoTo ErrorHandle:
Dim nms As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim fol As Outlook.AddressList
Dim objContact As Outlook.ContactItem
Dim cat As Outlook.Category
Set nms = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set fol = nms.AddressLists("Contacts")
Set objContact = fol.GetContactsFolder.Items.Find("[File as] = """ & Item.SenderName & """")
If objContact Is Nothing Then
Debug.Print "Contact" & Item.SenderName & " not found"
Else
Item.Categories = objContact.Categories
Item.Save
End If
exiting:
On Error Resume Next
' memory clean up
Set nms = Nothing
Set fol = Nothing
Set objContact = Nothing
Set cat = Nothing
Exit Sub
ErrorHandle:
' detailed error message
MsgBox Err.Description
GoTo exiting
End Sub
Secondly, having done all the hard work of categorising incoming mail, it makes sense that when I reply to or forward one of these messages, my reply is given the same categories as the message I'm replying to. To achieve that, follow the instructions here:
http://www.juergentreml.de/archives/379
As a third tip, I also use a rule to send all emails into a folder which I call my "collated inbox" and I use the "save replies with original message" option (Tools, options, e-mail options, advanced e-mail options) to keep everything together.
I hope someone else finds these as useful as I do!
