Flagging Your Emails

I will admit, I am still a bit bitter that the new Microsoft Outlook 2007 does not have my favorite colored flags at my fingertips. As a matter of fact, I'm quite annoyed. But for those of you who are still working in 2003, I'm going to introduce you to my little friends!

On the right hand side of your email list you will notice a little outline of a flag. If you right click on the flag it is going to give you color options! Woo hoo! Now, what can you do with these beautiful little babies? You can use them to color code your emails by action required. I used to use this method when I was an Admin. I would color code Bill and John's emails with the flag colors and it made their lives so much easier! They would sort by color first, get the things they needed to Respond to right away, ignore the FYI's until they had time to read them, and then move on to emails from people.

Orange - To Do
Green - Respond
Yellow - FYI
Blue - Travel
Red - Meeting

Or perhaps you want to use them for:

Orange - Orders
Yellow - Leads
Green - Customers
Blue - Annoying spammers
Red - Newsletters

If you share your email with family members:

Purple - You
Blue - Hubby
Orange - Johnny
Red - Sally

You can also sort your emails by the flag color! Just click on the gray tool bar that you would normally use to sort by email address, only click it above the flag section. Voila you are all set and you can respond to your emails in the manner that works best for you!

In my opinion, Microsoft never should have gotten rid of this feature in 2007 and I miss it greatly!