Let me introduce you to one of the best kept secrets and most underutilised assets in Outlook – especially Contacts. And that’s Categories. A category is a keyword or phrase that you can assign to a contact. Or an email. Or an appointment. Or a task! Or a journal entry, note, posted items and documents. You can assign one or as many categories as you like to each item.

Why are categories so utterly brilliant?
1. They help you to categorise and target your contacts by what is important to you (or, more wisely to them). You can create, for example, categories by industry, by company size, by their nature of business with you.
2. They’re great for organisation. By assigning categories to contacts (or emails, tasks) you can easily find, sort, filter, or group them by category.
3. Use categories to keep track of different types of items that are related but stored in different folders. For example, you can keep track of all the meetings, contacts, and emails for a baseball committee you’re on or any business project. Create a category (Baseball or New Project) and assign items to it.
4. Categories also give you a way to keep track of items without putting them in separate folders. For example, you can keep business and personal tasks in the same task list and use the Business and Personal categories to view the tasks separately. Microsoft Outlook supplies a list of categories, called the Master Category List. You can use this list as it is or add your own categories to it. Based on how you like to work, you can also: create new categories in the Master Category List in advance and then assign Contacts to them later. Assign items one at a time to categories as you create each item. Remember, a contact can be assigned more than one category. For example, it can be classified as a Key Customer, Small business owner, (your) newsletter recipient…

Top Tip
STOP!!!! Think very carefully. Take a walk; take time out. Think about your business and what you want to accomplish with categorising. What are your communication goals? Next, plan what information you need to do it well. Then start setting up your categories and getting the information.

How do I create a new category?
By the way, the next time you open up a contact – look at the bottom centre. There’s that little category button you’ve always ignored!

1. Select any Contact (or email, task, calendar item for that matter)
2. On the Edit menu, click Categories.
3. Click Master Category List.
4. In the New category box, type a name for the category.
5. Click Add.
6. To create more categories, repeat steps three and four.
7. Click OK twice.

Too late!
Are you thinking; “This is wonderful stuff Debbie but you’re years too late? I’ve got hundreds or thousands of contacts and this is in the too hard basket.” Well, I’ve got a wonderful quick solution for you. It’s called Organise and you’ll find it in the Tools menu. Once you have Organise open you can categorise your contacts enmasse! NB: Categories are not available in Outlook Express.

Debbie Mayo-Smith conducts customised in-house training (09) 575 5359, or get her new book Conquer Your Email Overload Superb Tips and Tricks For Busy People. Sign up for Debbie’s Business Quick Tips. Debbie Mayo-Smith is a keynote speaker, consultant and author. Sign up for her online newsletter at www.successis.co.nz