And now for some tidy tips for your desktop...

Technology makes life as a financial planner easier… right? Well, yes — if you know how to use it well. Among the most popular of all desktop technologies are Outlook and Outlook Express. Here are my top tips for making them work better for you.

1. Rules Wizard

Rules Wizard is a great way to filter, sort and move your e-mail. The Wizard gives you 1,001 choices, such as moving, forwarding, deleting and copying incoming or outgoing e-mails.

For example, suppose you want to separate out newsletters from a particular source likeMoney Management. Create a folder (see tip 5) and label itMoney Management. Then set up a rule that will put all incoming e-mail newsletters fromMoney Managementinto that folder in your inbox.

You can have it set so that any time the wordsMoney Managementappear in the subject line, in the body of the e-mail or in the e-mail address itself, it is automatically moved into the folder and not your inbox. (You’ll know there’s a new e-mail in the folder because it will have a blue number next to it designating the number of new and unopened e-mails).

Here’s how you do it.

1. Select Tools from the menu bar and choose Rules Wizard from the options.

2. Click on New in the pop-up box and follow the step-by-step instructions given. Outlook will create a sentence in the lower panel describing the rule you create.

3. To move e-mail messages to a special mailbox, you’re aiming to create a rule that says: after the message arrives with specified words in sender’s address move it to the specified folder. This is a pretty cool trick and great once you get the hang of it.

2. Junk mail filter

Are you getting lots of what you consider unsolicited e-mail — junk that you’re not interested in? There is a way to stop it from cramming your inbox.

The first is to turn on Microsoft’s Automatic Junk Mail Filter. It has a predefined set of criteria (you can find it under filter.txt.).

Once the filter is on, any time a new unwanted e-mail arrives in your inbox, right click it and select ‘add to junk mail filter’. By repeating this process and using it in conjunction with the Rules Wizard (described below), within a few weeks you can effectively eliminate many of your unwanted e-mails.

To turn it on you:

• Click Inbox.

• Click Organise.

• Click Junk E-mail.

• Select the options you want by clicking the down arrow next to each box in the first bulleted item.

• Click Turn on.

Instead of having it delete them I suggest moving them to a junk mail folder that you create so you can give it a once over to ensure nothing legitimate has fallen in by accident. You can also have it colour the messages.

3. Finding the needle in the haystack

Thank goodness for Advanced Find. Did you ever want to find an e-mail that you’ve sent (or received), or put somewhere? Searching for that one e-mail is really like looking for a needle in the haystack.

To save time, use Advanced Find.

Advanced Find will find an e-mail based on text in the message, dates, subject line, sent to and so on.

On the Tools menu, select Advanced Find. Then just select your criteria.

And don’t forget the basics:

4. Let Outlook be your PA

A wonderful, but little known application is Tasks. It can be one of your best friends.

A Task is a personal or work-related errand you want to track through to completion. For example, an outstanding order of supplies, or a person to telephone in a few days. A Task can occur once or repeatedly, such as a prompt for a regular bill payment.

In addition to creating your own Tasks, you can create Tasks that you assign to others — such as having the front office follow up or respond to an e-mail you receive.

Take any incoming e-mail and drag it into Tasks (the very bottom folder under Sent Items).

The entire e-mail contents will be transferred to the Task you create. Then you can set when you want it to remind you, if you want to assign it to someone, and the like.

On the designated day, as soon as you open Outlook it will prompt you to complete the Task.

5. Create folders

Don’t have 5,000 e-mails piling up in your inbox. Create folders in your inbox and store your read e-mails in them. That way when you need to find something you can locate it immediately, rather than scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

To create a folder for items in Outlook.

1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Folder.

2. In the Name box, enter a name for the folder.

3. In the Folder contains box, click the type of items you want the folder to contain.

4. In the Select where to place the folder list, click the location for the folder.

Tip 6. Signatures

Add a little marketing pizzazz to your e-mails. Why not have every e-mail you send include your name, company, tag line and telephone number (after all who doesn’t have a phone next to their computer)?

Here is how to set it up in Outlook 2000.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Format tab.

2. In the Send in this message format box, click the message format you want to use the signature with (HTML will give you colour, bolding, font choices).

3. Click Signature Picker, and then click New.

4. In the Enter a name for your new Signature box, enter a name.

5. Under Choose how to create your Signature, select start from scratch or use an existing signature. Click Next.

6. In the Signature text box, type the text you want to include in the signature.

7. You can also paste text to the Signature text box from another document such as Word.

8. To change the paragraph or font format, select the text, click Font or Paragraph, and then select the options you want. These options are not available if you use plain text as your message format.

Debbie Mayo-Smith runs Successful Internet Strategies.

www.successis.co.nz