Randy Dean shows how to drag emails onto Outlook icons to instantly create tasks, calendar events, and contacts. Pin the Tasks icon to your sidebar first, then left-click to create a task or right-click to move the email as an attachment. The same technique works for Calendar and Contacts, auto-filling details you can edit.
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All right. Hi everybody, Randy Dean here. Hey, um, this was a total oversight on my part, so I apologize for this oversight. I just realized going back through my past videos, I was looking through them for something. I never made a new video on how to use the new screen in classic Outlook, the older version of Outlook. So this is not a new web Outlook video to show you how to convert emails to task, calendar, and contact items. And that is like one of the essential tips for getting your inbox under control, sort of following the strategy that I'm recommending, which is frankly covered right here. Let me make myself a little smaller right here. This is my little chart where I sort of walk people through it, and I've added in additional text that sort of walks people through my decision tree. Basically starts off with the old classic one-touch rule. Instead of one touch with emails, it's of course one look. Look at it, decide what do I need to do next. If the thing is quick, à la David Allen's Getting Things Done, Do it now. Here's a good way to remember it. Let's go to OHIO, only handle it once. It takes more than a couple minutes, then it should of course go on to your task list or your calendar. And then once you either get it done because it's quick, or you put it on your task list or your calendar, you're done for now, which means it should no longer be in your inbox. You should either file it or delete it. And if there's no place to file it, make a folder, Put it there. Sort of walks you all the way through. And notice I even have videos out there for new Outlook, classic Outlook, and Gmail about how you can add labels before you file your emails to make it easier to find them with search, giving you more confidence to actually put them away. There, that was like the 30-second version of my Taming Email session. By the way, if you'd like to get a copy of this diagram I just put on the screen, you can just send me an email at Randy@randaldean.com and just say email diagram. And if you're close on the spelling, I'll know what you mean. So, but this part right here, turn your emails into task or calendar items. I never did a video with the newly formatted screen in Classic Outlook that's now been around a couple years. The reason it happened is I look back, I did a video on how to do this, an updated video on how to do this, right before Microsoft changed the screen setup. Um, so it was back when they were still down here in the bottom left corner, but we're not in that environment anymore. Most people are now in a Classic Outlook screen that looks something like this. See, they used to be down here, but they're not down here anymore. And so what I wanted to show you is how easy easy it is to turn your emails into task, calendar, and contact items in classic Outlook, the older version of Outlook, but the newer screen setup. Now, in order to do this, I got to share one important technical tip. What I'm about to show you does not work with the To Do icon yet. I, I still expect they're going to make this work at some point, but it's not working yet. If you do not see the old task item view right here, looks like a check mark on a clipboard. If you do not see that version of Tasks, it's probably hiding down here in your waffle. And if it's hiding down here in your waffle, you'll need to go onto it, right-click, and pin it. Then it will show on your sidebar. And then once something shows on your sidebar, you can move it up. And you'll notice I've got my task icon, the old task icon, all the way up to number 3 in my list behind email and calendar. Okay, and that's intentional because of how often I use it in classic Outlook. So that's the technical tip. And now that you've got the technical tip, let me show you how easy it is to make a new task based off of an email you received. Here is one right here that says, very few people know this Outlook trick. But honestly, what I really need to do is make and post this video. Notice how the task that needs to be done is not in the subject line. Little bit of an email etiquette tip for you there. Please try to make your subject lines at least somewhat project, person, client, task-oriented. Thank you very much. But now watch this. I'm going to do a left-click with my mouse. I'm going to hold the click and I am going to drag it over here to the old task icon. Now look, see, Not working on to-do yet. Every once in a while, check that to see if they ever get that activated, but bring it over here, drop it. That was a left-click, hold, drag, and drop. And then what you can do is create and post new Outlook video. Date, probably should get that done today. Priority, high. How long did that take? And If you don't trust yourself making new tasks because you're afraid you're going to forget to look at your task list, turn on a reminder and then hit save and close. But before I do that, take a look what's down on the bottom. The text of the email. So think about that. 10, 15 seconds. Left-click, hold the click, drag it to Task, drop it, pops up new task window, change subject line to what the task actually is, set appropriate due date and priority, and then you'll have the text of the message down here. If you're afraid you're going to forget to look, turn on a reminder so it'll pop up when you need to see it and then hit save and close. And if you're not doing a Zoom video, you'll get the pop-up right up on your screen saying create and post new Outlook video. And I also need to water the inside plants. Uh, I'm going to dismiss all those, but that's how you can do this so that you can make a task out of an email. Wait a minute, there's more. What if this email had an attachment, Randy? Well, let's try something here. Instead of a left-click, hold, drag and drop, do a right-click, hold, drag and drop. And look, this gives you options to copy or move here as task with attachment. I recommend you don't use this one because if you use that one, your email leaves the inbox, it becomes the task. If you'd rather still have that email for other uses, including filing, do copy here as task with attachment, and it will bring that attachment over into the task you just created. And that same little right-click, hold, drag, and drop works in calendar too, because now it's time to show you how to do a calendar item in classic Outlook new screen version. All right, here is that Tip: left-click, hold, drag to calendar icon, drop. That brings up a new calendar item where you can then very quickly create and post new YT video. Time? Oh, let's do this tomorrow at 9 AM. And look what's in the bottom once again of the new calendar item, the text of the message, which means, you know, if I want it, I can invite you to join me at the meeting tomorrow at 9 AM, hit invite, and I just turned it into a meeting. So in 20 seconds flat, not only can you make a new calendar item from an email, you can then flip it and turn it into a new meeting request. And because the text of the previous message is down here in the bottom, you could even put a cover note, something like, hey everybody, look at this message we just received from our key customer. "Customer, we need to have a meeting about this tomorrow morning." 30 seconds in. Easy peasy. Now let's close this calendar item. Want to save changes? No, but I want to show you it does work. Right-click, hold, drag and drop. Copy here as appointment with attachment. You can do an attachment on a calendar item too, if there's an attachment on that original email. I got one more for you. Watch this. Left-click, hold the click, and this time I want you to drag it to People. That is how you make a new contact in Microsoft Outlook. And look what it does. It auto-populates both name and email. And when it does that, what you're going to want to do is Page Down to see— yes, he's got a signature. Watch this. Let's grab that phone number right there. I'm simply going to highlight it, release the click, pick it up, move it. I'm going to highlight that mobile number real quick, release the click, click, pick it up, move it. And I'm going to highlight that website address right there. Release the click, pick it up, move it. Notice by doing a highlight, drag over, release, click, pick up, move, you don't have to do a cut and paste. You can just highlight something that's in the wrong place, release the click, pick it up, move it to the right place. And that little trick works in a whole bunch of other programs too, including Word, PowerPoint, um, New in Web Outlook, Gmail, all of them. You can just simply highlight something that's in the wrong place, move it to the right place. Another little micro tip. Let's see what happens when I hit save and close. Checks the database to make sure that the contact is correct. If the contact is already in there, that way you don't have to create duplicates. And it looks like everything from the last time I created is correct, so I'm just going to cancel. And close. Save changes? Nope. Now, if you're using new and web Outlook, I have a version of the video that I just did right now out on my YouTube channel. I'll put that in the description or comments. I also have one for people using Gmail, and I will also put the description for that in the comments and/or description also. So if you're using newer web Outlook, your screen doesn't look like this. And/or you're using Gmail, I got you covered. All right. So with that, hope you found this little video useful. Once again, if you'd like to— oops, I just moved everything. If you'd like to get a copy of my little diagram here, just send me an email, Randy@randaldean.com, and I'll send that to you as a PDF. And I will also send you, if you're interested, a copy of my YouTube video list guide, which has like a listing of like, I think, more than 100 of the videos I've done in the past. All you need to do is also send me an email, randy@randaldean.com, and put productivity PDF tip sheet in the subject line, or YouTube PDF, that would work too. And one last thing, obviously, if you like these videos, please like, please share, please consider subscribing to the channel. Please comment. All of those things greatly help the channel grow into the future. So thank you again for your time. I'm gonna turn this thing off now. Hope you have a wonderful evening.
