Now I know I’m opening myself up to a bit of controversy here but I really want to share with you a funky little tool in Outlook that helps me smash through my work at an astonishing pace, it’s called ‘Quick Parts’.

Quick Parts is essentially a ‘Canned Response’ tool in Outlook 2010… here comes the controversy… I completely understand the argument that automation can de-humanise certain interactions but when you have to relay the same sort of information several times a day, week or even month I think it’s worth saving yourself some time, implementing some automation and getting on with your life.

So how does it work? Well I’m glad you asked…

Firstly open up a new email message like so:
Now type the text in the body of the email which you find yourself frequently typing.

It’s a good idea to make this as generic as possible so as to not look like a fool if you accidentally hit send before personalising.

For example:
‘Hi,
Thank you so much for your order. We’ll get the ball rolling ASAP!
Kind regards
Joe’

This also allows you to personalise the email before it’s sent so that it’s not so generic:
‘Hey You,
Thank you so much for your licensing order. Licensing usually takes between 48-72 hours to come through.
We’ll get the ball rolling ASAP!
Kind regards
Joe’

See what I did there?

Now to saving the generic text so that you can use it over and over again.

Simply highlight the text you would like saved and open the Insert Tab.

Then click on ‘Save selection to Quick Parts Gallery‘

When the ‘Create New Building Block’ dialogue box comes up, give your new Quick Parts entry a meaningful name such as ‘Order approval’ and enter a description if you wish, then press OK.

And voilà you’re done! AND you can save as many as you like!

Next time you need to enter that text simply click insert > Quick Parts > Then select the saved item you wish to insert. If you want to, you can then put extra details in to personalise the email and then send.

Happy automating!