Michael Linenberger's Blog

It’s the start of the new year, and I am asking you what your priorities are. Notice that I did not ask what your goals are. Why not?

Well, there is nothing wrong with setting goals for the new year. But nearly everyone suggests setting goals and I am sure you’ve gotten that message by now.

And really, I think what most people need to do at the start of the year is to learn how to set priorities effectively. There is no point in setting goals if you cannot execute those goals throughout the year by effectively setting and managing your priorities—you need to start there.

If you own the MYN-Outlook Complete Video Training course, then here’s a free upgrade for you. We’ve created a new video delivery page, one that works better on mobile devices and on a variety of browsers. It’s the same video content, just delivered differently. Go to this link, log in, and take a look.

Note, you could still use the older video delivery page, but the technology we used there is not great for mobile devices, and older browsers like Internet Explorer are starting to complain about that video technology. The newer delivery page loads faster and is more problem free. Plus, we are going to start putting all updates and new videos only on the new page (for example, Lesson 31 on that page is new).

Once you navigate to the new delivery page, don’t forget to save the link for future reference.

Michael

Subscribers to Office 365 are starting to see a monthly update to Windows Outlook with a dramatically different Ribbon design.

I mentioned this in December’s newsletter, but now I have a free video that demonstrates it. Go to this link and then scroll down to video 8.2, it’s unlocked and free whether you own the Ninja course or not.

This new Ribbon is an optional Coming Soon feature, presented for you to commend on. But eventually it will be a solid part of Windows Outlook, so take a look.

A lot of people avoid using the Search box at the top of the Inbox in Windows Outlook because it returns too many hits—that makes finding a specific email very hard. If you are consistently frustrated by that, here’s a simple tip. Narrow the search by using the Subject button (see left side of figure below).

This works because very often the keyword we are looking for is in the subject (title) of the email and using the button forces a search in the subject only. The way to do this is simple (step numbers below correspond to numbers in figure above):

1. Click once in the empty Search box.
2. Doing that opens the Search Tools Ribbon, find it.
3. Find and click the Subject button in the Search Tools Ribbon. That inserts a phrase in the Search box.
4. In that phrase, overtype the selected “keywords” entry with your specific search term and hit Enter.

That’s it!

For a video demonstration of this tip, and to see a lot more similar tips, watch Lesson 3.2 in the Outlook Inbox Ninja Video Course. Also watch Lesson 3.3 there. In fact, there are a ton of good tools described in the whole section 3 of that course, so check it out.

Michael

This is a pet peeve of mine: I open an email from someone I trust, and all the images in the email are disabled—you know, you see a blank square where the image should be. Then you have to right-click the square to display the image.

Well, there is a way to fix that so that the images DO load automatically for people you trust.

First, a little Background

Outlook makes this a default global setting to avoid privacy issues and malware infections. It’s a real concern and you probably should leave this global setting as-is, and continue blocking image downloads in emails from unknown senders.

But did you know you can automatically unblock images for trusted senders? It’s incredibly easy and well worth it; you’ll no longer need to right-click images inside their emails to view them.

How to Fix This

The way to do this is you simply white-list those users in Outlook, and from then on, all mail from them will include downloaded images automatically. You do this one sender at a time, as you determine that certain senders are trusted (by the way, I recommend you do this for MY newsletters!).

Here’s how to do it:

1. Right-click an email in the Inbox.
2. Choose Junk.
3. Choose Never Block Sender. Or choose Never Block Sender’s Domain (if you get trusted email from numerous addresses in that company).

That’s it! From now on all mail from that sender will auto-download images whenever you open them, saving you time and giving you more information.

Michael

I released an Outlook Inbox Ninja video course last spring. But for those who have not watched it, here are the main points for becoming an Outlook Inbox Ninja.

The goal of being an Inbox Ninja is this: email is not distracting you from your main work and it’s not taking you too much time to process your email. Rather, you are keeping up with email easily, getting other work done, and not missing important communications.

Here are the Specific Outcomes of being an Outlook Inbox Ninja:

• You are able to rapidly scan mail using advanced Outlook Inbox views and tools.
• All tasks from email are captured in an easy-to-use task system
• Important email is filed away using very rapid filing techniques.
• All other email is deleted using very quick scans.
• As a result, your Inbox is nearly emptied at least once each day, easily.
• A simple email-archiving system is put in place if your server mailbox was previously running out of space—no more mailbox full messages.

Consider taking the Outlook Inbox Ninja video course so you can easily achieve these goals. We’ve got a 20% coupon offer this week, take a look.

Michael

Here is a Pre-Black Friday Coupon Offer, good for the next few days only.

The coupon code is PBKEZPHN. It expires end-of-day Wednesday.

To use this, go to the Outlook Inbox Ninja Video Course, click either of the purchase options at the bottom, and enter that code in the Coupon Code field at checkout. You’ll get 20% off!

Again, this offer expires the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Michael

A lot has happened with Windows OneNote in the last year around its versioning, and it’s now getting confusing for many people. This version confusion can influence several things that 1MTD and MYN users might be doing. So, let me sort out these different Windows OneNote versions for you.

First, let me say that I really like OneNote, which is Microsoft’s notetaking app, and I recommend it often to my 1MTD and MYN users. I use it for a lot more than just notetaking. I use it for shopping lists, for saving web links, for collecting ideas for books, and more.

In my video courses, I also recommend OneNote for small project management and for email archiving. Which video courses? I discuss using OneNote in my One-Minute Project Management Video Course and in my Outlook Inbox Ninja videos. Picking the right version is important for both courses. So for those courses, and for other reasons, let me explain current Windows OneNote versioning.    Continue reading →