Oh, the dread of an overflowing Inbox after a holiday... 😫

We've all been there. But it doesn't have to be that way.

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📧 Combat email backlog with these Outlook features

Coming back to a flood of emails after a vacation can be overwhelming.

I've put together some practical tips to manage your inbox using Microsoft Outlook. Outlook "Classic" that is - I'm still not sold on the "New" one.

Before you leave...

Auto-responder end date

I'm assuming you set up your Out of Office message (File > Automatic Replies > Send automatic replies).

Do yourself a favor and set it to expire the day after you return.

Obviously, your boss and close teammates will know that you're back. But this should buy you a little time to catch up.

Rules to pre-sort the incoming emails

Set up Outlook rules to automate email sorting. This will help you prioritize once you get back.

Some rules to consider:

• Prioritize Emails from Boss/Key Clients: Set up a rule to mark emails from your boss or key clients as high importance. Move them to a dedicated folder for easy access.
• Newsletters and Subscriptions: Create a rule to move newsletters and mailing lists to a "Read Later" folder. This keeps your main inbox clutter-free.
• Calendar Invites: Funnel meeting invitations to a separate folder, where you can quickly triage. Delete those that have already passed or been cancelled. See what's left and if you need to prepare.
• Automated Emails: Any other system-generated emails and notifications can go into one folder. There, you can easily delete the lot. If you feel confident that you won't miss anything important, you can even create a rule that automatically deletes them.
• Emails Where You're in CC: If you're only copied on an email that usually doesn't require any action from your side. You can review them later. You can also color-code them if you're following a project- or sender-based system.

How to create a new rule

1. Go to Home (tab) > Move (group) > Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts.
2. In the Rules and Alerts window, click on New Rule.
3. Choose a template or start from a blank rule.
4. Follow the prompts to specify conditions, actions, and exceptions.
5. Name your rule and review the settings before clicking "Finish".

If you don't like too many folders, you can also use rules to assign categories. You can filter by categories in Search.

First day back

Hopefully, the rules have done their job and you can start organizing your work based on priority.

There are a few more techniques that you can use to reduce the number of messages. And to speed through the rest.

Clean Up Tool

Use the Clean Up feature to remove redundant messages from email threads.

You'll find it in the Home tab, in the Delete group.

You can run it on a specific thread or on all threaded conversations in the folder.

This helps keep email chains concise and relevant.

Quick Steps

To speed up processing the remaining emails, set up Quick Steps.

They let you perform multiple actions in one click.

For example, create a "Defer" step for messages that require more effort. Move it to your "To Do" or "Action" folder and set up a follow-up reminder for this week.

Or, if you can delegate a task, use a Quick Step to forward it to a colleague, mark as read and archive.

In the Home tab, expand Quick Steps > New Quick Step.

From there, you can select an action, like Flag and Move. Next, select the flag and destination folder.

You can add more actions under Options. You can also assign a keyboard shortcut.

I hope these tips allow you to hold on to the post-vacation bliss for a little longer.

Find more practical Outlook tips in our tutorials.

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🌞 Summer Excel Challenge 💪

Perhaps you're only just returning from vacation (lucky you! 😉) and missed the news about our Excel Challenge.

Don't worry, there's still time. 😊

At the end of July, we've launched Excel Practice Exercises.

It's a set of practice files to let you test your intermediate Excel skills.

Together with the Exercises, we've launched a challenge.

Here's how you can enter:

1. Complete all 3 Exercise Packs.
2. Add your full name to the file names.
3. Email them to info@xelplus.com
4. Add a subject line: Summer Excel Fun

⏰ Deadline: 31st August, 2024

🎁 The award?

10 lucky participants will win free access to my upcoming Pivot Table Masterclass, set to release in September.

Good luck and happy solving!

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🤓 Geeky News

🔎 REGEX comes to XLOOKUP

Are lookups tricky with your messy data? REGEX to the rescue!

In May this year, Excel introduced a family of REGEX functions. They use regular expressions to find patterns in text.

At the time, they promised they will add this functionality to more functions.

And now it's here - Regex match mode in XLOOKUP and XMATCH.

Say, your lookup table has inconsistent data, like a list of names in all possible first-last combinations.

You can use a regex pattern as your lookup value, and in the match mode argument, select 3 for regex match.

Yes, the regex patterns look quite scary. But you can ask Copilot or ChatGPT to generate it for you.

This update is currently available to Microsoft 365 Insiders.

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👏 Power Stories

As always, I'm happy when the skills I teach in my courses are put into practice.

Like Kiarash, who completed Master Excel Power Pivot & DAX (Beginner to Pro) and left this wonderful review:

	Leila is great at explaining complex topics in simple terms. I recommend this course to anyone planning to advance their expertise in Power Pivot/Power BI DAX as well as Data Modelling. I already had the opportunity to apply many of the techniques I have learned throughout this excellent course while developing data models and creating more advanced measures.
	Kiarash Mostafavi

Got a success story about using your XelPlus skills? I’d love to hear it! Hit reply to share the details, and inspire other students 😇

Best,

Leila

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