Improving prioritization improves productivity and tasks can be prioritized easily if everything is organized into relevant categories. Microsoft Outlook allows categories to be set and changed as required for all items (emails, tasks, contacts, appointments, etc).
The Microsoft website provides detailed guidance on how to set up a category for all the different versions of Microsoft office, but all versions have a range of colors and allow descriptions to be added to each color.
Two Steps to Improve Productivity
There are two steps to improving productivity using categories:
- Set up - Work out what categories are required, choose a color for each category and then change the descriptions.
- Maintain - Whenever a new item is created in Microsoft Outlook (an email arrives, an appointment is added to the diary, a new task is entered, etc), open the item and set the relevant categories. More than one category can be assigned to an item.
Organize by Life Roles
Everyone has a life made up of many different roles (parent, worker, friend, job title 1, job title 2, volunteer, pet owner, etc) and juggling the many tasks required to fulfill each role can be made easier using categories.
For each role, assign a different category (and color), then any items related to that role can be categorized appropriately.
This is particularly useful for contacts as contacts can be sorted by category in Microsoft Outlook.
Prioritize the Schedule
Categories can also be used to schedule all items by priority. Time management defines priority as a combination of importance and urgency. Assigning categories to reflect the importance of items, especially tasks and appointments, will help with prioritization.
Selecting three levels of importance and choosing a very different color for each will allow the most important items to stand out and have immediate impact. Focusing effort on the important items will improve productivity.
Diary Organization and Calendar Management
Categorizing every item in the calendar by importance will help ensure that new items are evaluated more carefully when a conflict occurs: giving higher priority to the more important items will help improve productivity and effectiveness.
Whenever a new diary item arrives (an appointment, a meeting request, a new piece of work to be completed) before entering it in the diary, consider the categorization and the impact of adding it.
It is also possible to see at a glance whether effort is being focused on important items.
Organize Emails to Increase Productivity
There are many ways to organize emails – the key is to have a system and stick to it. Categories can play a part too as Microsoft Outlook allows emails to be sorted by category. This can be particularly useful to prioritize which emails will be dealt with when, rather than reacting to the arrival of an email. This also improves productivity.
Using Microsoft Outlook categories to provide a colorful view of everything to be done will help maintain a balanced and productive schedule.
Dawn Brewer - I have a portfolio career - as a writer, management consultant, instructor and coach - after twenty years in the corporate world. My ...
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