June 2006 Efficiency Newsletter

Technology does not create productive people. We do.

This past month has been more of the same here at SET. I was lucky enough to participate in the Maryland State Bar's Annual Meeting, where I spoke about utilizing RSS to stay informed of current legal happenings. We've also been very involved in a number of government and corporate projects.

Thank you again to the companies who continue to work with and partner with us. We greatly appreciate your trust in our ability to assist your clients and employees.

Tip of the Month

Create a basic rule in Outlook

Here's a quick way to automatically forward all messages related to a particular category into a specific folder. If you're already doing this, you may find this way a little faster than using the Rules Wizard.

1. Right click on an email message that is representative of the messages you'd like to forward to a specific folder

2. Choose Create Rule

3. Select the criteria that you need Outlook to look for. Here are a couple examples of criteria:
   

Note how I'm checking the From option and that I'm editing the subject to make it more general in its reach.

Note how I'm indicating that the messages I'm interested in are ones sent to a listserv, rather than just to me. If the author of this listserv is sending directly to me then I don't want the rule to forward it to another folder.

4. Choose the folder where you’d like this type of messages to reside

5. Click OK

Tool of the Month

Anagram (to Quickly Copy a Contact's Info or Look up their Address)

I have discussed Anagram before, praising how easy it makes entering someone's contact information into Outlook. There are two other Anagram contact features that I want to point out:

1. Copy as Text - quickly copies to the clipboard a tidy version of the Outlook contact, which is perfect for pasting into an email. For instance, copying and pasting my own Contact produced this email-ready text:

Jared Goralnick
President
SET Consulting, Inc.
5821 Windermere Lane
Fairfield, Ohio 45014
United States of America
(240) 296-0800 (business)
john@setconsulting.com
http://www.setconsulting.com

I find this to be safer and more universal than sending VCF files (which will copy your note fields and categories--things you may not want to share), and a lot easier than copying and pasting all of this yourself.

2. Map It - quickly displays a Google map of the contact's address. While Outlook does provide a map feature, many prefer Google’s interface and will appreciate this timesaver.
   

Both of these features are accessible from the Anagram menu that is available in Contacts once you install Anagram (www.getanagram.com):