Use keyboard shortcuts
Speaking of F9 leads us to the next technique: learn and use keyboard shortcuts. I know it's a pain to memorize lots of weird key combinations, but think about it. Every time you lift your fingers off the keyboard to click through Outlook's menus, you lose time.

I mean, which is faster, grabbing the mouse and clicking Send/Receive on the toolbar, then getting your hand back into position on the keyboard, or pressing the F9 key? Clicking Contacts in the Navigation pane, or pressing the Ctrl and 3 keys on the keyboard simultaneously (the Ctrl+3 keyboard shortcut)? Granted, each time you do this you only save a second or two, but think about how many times a day you switch from keyboard to mouse and back again. Even a second or two per switch adds up over the course of the day.

The key here is to think about the activities you do most frequently with the mouse, and learn the keyboard shortcuts that can replace them. Learn one at a time. Pick one, then practice it until it becomes automatic. Then pick another and repeat the process. Over time you'll get more efficient and those seconds will add up to real savings.

To find out what shortcuts are available, search the Outlook help system for the phrase, "keyboard shortcuts".

Automate your filing
If you keep copies of your old messages, you probably have a bunch of folders in Outlook where you stash messages after you read them. You can free yourself from this chore by creating rules to move messages into the correct folders when they arrive. The details of how you do this are beyond the scope of this story, but the basic idea is that you use the Rules wizard to create rules that move messages with certain characteristics (like who they are from or keywords they contain) into particular folders.

To get a start on this process, you can right-click a message in the Inbox pane, then select the Create Rule option. This opens the Create Rule dialog box, where with only a few clicks you can create a rule to move messages with certain characteristics to particular folders. Figure B makes this clearer.

FIGURE B

Create rules to move messages to the appropriate folders and save yourself lots of time. Click picture for a larger image.

And don't worry about having to search through all your folders looking for messages you haven't read yet. The Unread Mail search folder shows you the unread messages in all your mail folders, not just the Inbox, so you're covered.

Keep your junk mail filter current
One of the biggest Outlook time wasters is junk email. Outlook has a built-in junk mail filter which works pretty well, but you need to help it out. The jerks who send all that junk mail are constantly coming up with tricks to get past your junk mail filter, and Microsoft is constantly issuing updates to block the latest tricks.

So you need to make sure Outlook's junk mail filter gets updated regularly. The easiest way to do this is to use the free Microsoft Update service. If you haven't already signed up for this service, click Help, then Check for Updates. That'll get you started.