Outlook Categories
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
In Microsoft Outlook, there is a categorize option to add a color category to emails, calendar entries, tasks, notes, etc.
For example, I have personal and professional color categories for my tasks. Personal tasks are purple and professional are blue. So when I’m looking at my day ahead, I can see at a glance which tasks are professional work and which are personal work. I put color categories on important emails that I use as templates for other emails and sort my emails by category so I can readily find those templates. Many people use color categories on their calendars. Perhaps client meetings are categorized as green, prospects as blue, personal appointments as orange, breaks as purple.
If you don’t see a need to add color categories to Outlook items, don’t start. It’s an extra step that isn’t necessary unless you have an intrinsic need for them. But if categories would be helpful to you, they are available.
You can add one or multiple categories to your Outlook items. You can also customize your categories. The default names for the categories are their color names: Green category, Orange category, Red category. If you want to change the names, hit the drop down button under Categorize and then click All Categories. In the pop-up window that appears, select one of the colors and hit Rename. Give that color a new name and click OK. There are 6 default colors you can rename. If you need more, there are other color options in the All Categories pop-up window to choose from under the Color drop down list.
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