As I explain in my training on the Empowered Productivity System, keeping details in your head causes stress — for example, that racing brain that keeps you awake at night. You might track information well when it’s an email or other electronic or physical format, but what about a conversation? Have you ever emailed yourself?
Well, the “Post in this Folder” feature of Microsoft Outlook is designed with this in mind. This short video will show you how. If you prefer to read, jump down below the video.
Let’s say you’re having a communication with someone over email about some subject, and you’ve created a folder for this topic where you file these communications so you have a record. But then at some point, one of you picks up the phone and you bring some issues to a conclusion verbally. Now your email record is incomplete. “Post to this Folder” is designed to accommodate exactly this situation.
Here’s how to do it:
In any window in Outlook, clicking on the “New” button will bring a new item for that window. For example, in the email window, clicking on “New” will bring up a new email. However, in every Outlook window, there is a little drop-down arrow right beside the “New” button. If you click on this drop down arrow, you will see a list of your choices for a “new” item.
- Click on the folder that contains the history of the email communication you want to add to.
- Click on the drop down arrow beside the “New” button, and select “Post in this Folder.”
- Here you can add a subject and then the content of the conversation. When you click “post,” it will appear in the email list above the most recent message you’ve moved to that folder.
Read here about keeping lists in Outlook’s “Notes’ feature. For more Outlook tips, and ideas on productivity and organization, visit regainyourtime.com.
I use “Post in this Folder” to track complex matters by cutting and pasting from emails and adding to the Post. I can quickly go through the post and see all conversations and emails from different streams and unrelated sub-topics within the same topic and thereby quickly locate an email. Although I don’t add attachments unless critical (they fill up the Post too quickly) I do add some. My problem: in Outlook 2007 every time I updated the Post via “Actions>Revise Comments”, it became the most recent email in Inbox and as I clean out the Inbox each day (except the Posts), that means the most recent posts are always right at hand. In Outlook 2010 the command is “Actions>Edit Message” and when that is used it does not update the post to make it the most recent Inbox entry so it is still way back. Can you tell me how to achieve that? One way would be to cut and paste and make a new Post every once in a while, or just do drafts instead and keep in Inbox but then you can’t flag the drafts. Alternatively is there a way to flag drafts before sending (you used to be able to do that in older Outlook versions but can’t in 2007 or 2010). That was why I switched to Posts. What I do now is find the Post using Search and update it when a new email comes in but it’s a drag. Any suggestions are welcomed. Thanks Bill O’Henly [email protected]