Do you struggle locating items in Outlook? Do you spend too much time searching through your various folders in Outlook trying to find specific items? If so, you might want to consider using Categories.

A category is a specific word or phrase that you can use to group your Outlook items so you can easily find them later on. I should say ‘logically’ group items because they can be stored in different folders. For example, if you are working on a business project, you can assign all related items (e-mails, notes, contacts, and so on), to the same category (such as business). When you want to bring up items related to your business project, you can do so using the category you assigned the items to.

When it comes to using Categories, Outlook includes a Master Category List. You can group your items using the predefined categories or you can create your own. Both of these processes are described below.

Once you have Outlook open, select the item/items you want to assign to a specific category. An item can include e-mails, contacts, tasks, journal entries, notes, appointments, and so on. You can select more than one item by holding down the CTRL key as you select them. From the Edit menu, click the Categories option. From the list of Available Categories, select the category you want to assign to the items. Keep in mind that you can assign an item to more then one category.

Alternatively, using a few simple steps, you can create your own custom categories. For example, if you are working on a specific project, you may want to create a category using the project name. You can then assign this category to all the items that relate to that particular project.

Creating a new category is very easy to do. Once you have Outlook open, select the item or items you want to assign a new category to. From the Edit menu, click the Categories option. From the Categories dialog box, click the Master Category List button. Type in a name for the new category that you want to create in the New category field and click the Add button. You can repeat this step for any additional categories that you want to create. Click OK to close the Master Category List dialog box and click OK to close the Categories dialog box.

If you want to search for items based on a category, click the Advanced Find button from the Tools menu. Select the More Choices tab and type in the name of the category or click the Categories button to select the appropriate one. Click Find Now and all the items assigned to the category will be displayed.