Organize Your Email in Color & More
Tips for Getting Your Email Under
Control
By Diana Ennen & Tawnya Sutherland

Work-at-home parents know how important
time management is in running a successful
business. Often they need help with daily
operational procedures and learning how
to make the most of their time. Here are
some tips to help you run your business
more successfully.

Organize your email in color!

If you use Outlook or even Outlook
Express, use color to organize your email. I have a visual personality so sorting by
color organizes me quicker and without much thought involved on my part so it
works for me. Maybe it will for you too!

I have all my clients' email headers in red, my personal email from friends in green,
family gets blue, e-lists get purple and the vendor email is brown. This way I can
easily scan priority email every morning. It also makes the spam stick out since I
leave this black and can scan through it easier to click and delete.

So how do I color my headers in my email box? The first thing you need to do is to
select a message from the person you want all messages color highlighted.

Next you're looking for the Organize button located on the Standard toolbar. (You
can also find Organize in the Tools menu). The Organize feature will open at the
top of your mailbox.

On the left you should find the "Using Colors" option. Click it. The statement in this
feature is simple enough.

By default it is trying to color messages "from" someone and the senders name from
the highlighted message is already filled in, so... all you have to do is to pick a color
from the drop down list at the end.

Click the Apply Color button and never overlook an email from that person again.

Another tip from Diana Ennen of Virtual Word Publishing,is: Get into the habit of
scheduling a certain time of day to read your e-mails. Don’t keep your e-mail box
open and check constantly throughout the day. When you do, your Outlook owns
you. You will find you will accomplish so much more when you do this. A simple
just send a quick e-mail can turn into valuable work time being wasted. Let your
clients know when you routinely answer your mail and then they will be used to
hearing back from you at that time.

For those work-at-home parents, time is of the essence. As successful virtual
assistants, we know that we can better do our work for our clients globally if we
successfully handle all aspects of our business in the most time effective manner.

Stop by our forum at VAN, for additional tips on how to start your business and
keep it running more successfully. We are of group of over 2300 aspiring and
successful virtual assistants who strive for excellence in all we do.

Meet the writers:

Tawnya Sutherland, founder of
Virtual Assistant Networking (VAN)
and author of The VAS System, a Virtual
Assistant Startup System, is a Certified
Internet Marketing Specialist sharing much
of her online marketing experience at VAN
to help aspiring and successful VAs turn
clicks into cash at their websites. Contact her at tawnya@mediamage.com or the
Publicity Rep for VAN, Diana Ennen at diana@virtualwordpublishing.com  
Home Office Weekly
Your guide to successfully living & working under one roof!
Subscribe Today! Click Here!