In my previous post today I blogged about only accessing Outlook three times during my day to reduce distractions.  Then I realized that even though I want to keep the program closed, I want to be able to send messages to clients and coworkers.

On a side note, let me say that I try to keep the messages I send to others concise and relevant for the recipients.  Nevertheless, my role and responsibilities require that I send out confirmations and notifications on internal matters such as security transactions, fund receipts and disbursements, and the occasional status update.

If I’m going to send out these updates, how can I do it while keeping Outlook closed?  Enter the new email message shortcut.

Creating a New Email Shortcut

Here is a quick and easy tip you can use should you want to keep Outlook closed for long periods yet still wish to send outgoing email messages.

Summary

For readers comfortable making desktop shortcuts, simply create a new shortcut with the following item location (you may need to use a different path where your Outlook.exe is located):

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\Outlook.exe” /c ipm.note

The Nitty Gritty Details

For readers that need the step-by-step process of creating this shortcut, I’m including it below.  First, find the location of your computer’s Outlook executable file, outlook.exe.  For most Windows XP users, the executable is found buried in the Program Files directory.  The image below shows the full path of my outlook.exe location:

Highlight and copy the path in the address bar: this is what we’ll need to create the shortcut.

Next, minimize all windows to show the desktop.  Right-click anywhere on the desktop to bring up a menu list, hover the cursor over New and then click Shortcut (shown below). 

This brings up the window to create a shortcut (shown below).  In the item location, paste in the address where outlook.exe is located that was copied from the explorer window.  The address needs to be surrounded by quotation marks.

Before clicking Next, the following text needs to be entered to the right of the Outlook.exe path (known to me as switch options):

/c ipm.note

So the entire entry in the item location should be:

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\Outlook.exe” /c ipm.note

Click Next > then type in a name for the shortcut (e.g. Outlook New Email Message) and click Finish.  Now you have a desktop icon you can click any time to open a new email message window.  You don’t need to bother opening Outlook and get distracted by the huge quantities of email in your inbox.

Shortcut Bonus

Here’s a bonus on using the shortcut.  If you want to use a keyboard combination (I use CTRL+SHIFT+M for my email shortcut, which is the default shortcut used when Outlook is running), right-click on the shortcut icon and then select Properties.  Click on the Shortcut Key field once and then press the keyboard combination to set this field (shown below).

Click OK to accept your changes and then try out the keyboard combo: CRTL+SHIFT+M.  How about that, a new email message window appears!

I hope you find this shortcut as useful as I have today.  I have a quick and easy way to open a new email window that I can use to send quick and appropriate messages.

Be sure to leave any feedback or suggestions in the comments below.

[tip: Brian Tillman]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Efficiency, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.