Note: This article is about the drag and drop integration between Microsoft Outlook and Priority Matrix. You might also be interested in our Priority Matrix for Outlook add-on.
Many of us are guilty of task management by email. You know the drill: You get a message about something you need to do, and in order to remember, you mark that email as unread until you’re done with it. The result is an inbox full with messages that you have already read, but are somehow marked to be pending. As time passes, you mark some of them as read because you’re done with them, but invariably the increasing number of pending items ends up contributing to your stress level and, in the worst case, smothering your creativity and paralyzing your mind. There has to be a better way.
And as it turns out, there is a better way, thanks to Outlook integration with Priority Matrix. If you’re using Priority Matrix for Windows, you can simply drag a message onto a quadrant. Outlook is the preferred email client for Windows, and we program with Outlook 2010, but it works with Outlook 2007 and newer. This will create a new item in that quadrant that grabs its title and notes from the email subject and body. More interestingly, we collect the message id and, when you double-click on the newly created item, the original email is open if it’s still available.
So for example, if an important client sends you an email about an order that arrived damaged, you can drag that message to the “critical and immediate” (because this is something that needs to be addressed quickly, by yourself or someone with responsibility). Later on, when you are working on the item and you need to refer to its details, you have them readily available in the item’s notes.
Here’s a short video showing drag and drop of Outlook emails in action:
But more importantly, if you want to reply to your client to keep her happy, you can simply double-click on that item. This action will open up the original email message. From there, you can hit reply and tell the customer that everything has been fix. That will be one happy customer, and you will be on top of your game. Like a boss.
PS: If you use Mac, we have a similar integration with Apple Mail.
PPS: Starting with our latest release, we also support dragging tasks, not just messages, into Priority Matrix.
PPPS: Note that if you are using Outlook.com or Office 365, we provide separate instructions on how to subscribe to our calendars.
This Outlook integration post is part of a series dedicated to uncovering hidden Priority Matrix gems that you might not know about. Priority Matrix is a simple and effective task management tool suite for busy people like you. You can try it for free to see if it fits your needs, with no obligation.
Learn more about Priority Matrix for Windows, iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android.