Most of us have to use Microsoft Outlook for our day-to-day organisation and communication, so it's a good idea to learn some of its secrets. Here's a guide to get you started.

When it comes to Microsoft Outlook, the 80/20 rule means that 80 percent of us use it, but 20 percent of us spend our days cursing its limitations and intricacies. If you're a frequent traveller, for instance, the chances are Outlook's handling of time zones in its calendar has driven you crazy at least once. If you synchronise with a Palm OS device, the aggravation increases exponentially.

Similarly, formatting views and playing with category lists may be tedious, but these tweaks are essential for optimal day-to-day operation. Without them, simple tasks such as finding information quickly or keeping your business and personal information separate become Sisyphean endeavours. In addition, spending a little time with up-front organisation may help you recover from synchronisation accidents by providing you with easy-to-spot indicators that something's gone horribly wrong. You can take steps to minimise the problems you'll encounter, as well as find ways to use Outlook's many features to their full advantage.

Indeed, Outlook has many useful features you probably didn't know existed; this is particularly true of Outlook 2003, which is probably the only real reason to upgrade to Office 2003. In this guide, we cover a broad range of topics. For our examples, we use Outlook 2003, but you'll find many of these features and options in earlier versions, too.

Outlook can display two time zones in Calendar views. Having it display the two you use most frequently can be invaluable when scheduling appointments or trips. From the Tools / Options menu, select Calendar Options / Time Zone and check 'Show an additional time zone'. If you travel frequently or set up appointments all over the world and use Exchange, consider selecting GMT as your primary zone and your actual location as the secondary one to minimise confusion.

Also, watch your system-clock settings. This isn't much of an issue with a desktop, but it can be with a notebook or a handheld. If you change your system's zone to match your location, your entire calendar will update to match the new zone, and your reminders will go bonkers. If you then synchronise with another device, trouble of all kinds ensues. Instead, on a notebook, swap the current and additional time zones within Outlook, which merely changes the view, not the data. On the Pocket PC, go to System Settings and switch the Clock setting from Home to Visiting. For Palm OS devices, you're better off using a third-party calendaring application, such as DateBk5.

If you're sick of wading through a mishmash of email messages, appointments and contacts, you can assign them to categories to make finding, sorting and filtering them easier. Take a minute to think about how you work and think, then develop a categorisation scheme that fits into your work flow.

To assign a category, for instance, when creating an email message, select Options / Categories from the View menu. To assign a category to an existing message, right-click it and select Categories. When you have enough messages assigned to categories, you can arrange your messages so that all in a certain category are grouped together. To add or delete categories, go to Edit / Categories and click the Master Category List button.

Not everyone needs custom Contact fields, but if you find yourself repeatedly using the Notes field for the same information or jumping from screen to screen in search of related data, here's a way to put it to work for you. For our example, we'll show you how to create and use custom fields.

Start from within a view you'd like to update. In this case, we'd like to create a variation of the default Phone List view, which you get to by selecting View / Arrange By / Current View / Phone List. To begin customising, select View / Arrange By / Custom, then click the Fields button. On the left is a list of the available fields you could use, and on the right is the list of fields currently in the view. To remove a field from the view, select it, and then click Remove. After you've removed the superfluous fields, select the fields you want from the list on the left and click Add.

To add a custom field, click the New Field button. In the resulting dialogue box, enter a name, select a field type (such as Text, Number or Date) and, if necessary, a format for the data. Next, save your view by selecting View / Arrange By / Current View / Define Views and highlighting Current View Settings. Click Copy, then give the view a name and click OK. That view should now appear in the View / Arrange By / Current View menu.

Colour-coding takes some initial work, but it's usually worth it. How you choose your colour-coding scheme depends on your needs. Do you need to quickly differentiate between personal and public information? Or do you need to easily spot required versus optional meetings? Once you've analysed your work style, edit the calendar labels to reflect the types of information you consider important. Editing your colour-coding scheme within the Outlook calendar is easy; just choose Edit / Label / Edit Labels, rename your labels and click OK.

Within email, you can use the Automatic Formatting feature to make mail from different senders appear in different colours; messages from your boss in red, for instance; messages sent only to you in blue; and messages from a distribution list in light grey. Select Tools / Organize / Using Colors. Enter a sender's name and a colour where indicated, and then click Apply Color. To view your colour-coding rules, click Automatic Formatting at the top right of the Organize pane.

You can also use different coloured follow-up flags. For instance, we use red flags for vendor, blue for reader and orange for personal email follow-ups. But because you can't map flag colours the way you can labels, you have to remember what they stand for.

Please -- we beg of you -- for the sanity of recipients and server administrators, as well as your own, don't use fancy formatting or HTML in your email unless absolutely necessary. If you have complex information to convey, attach a file rather than re-create it within an email message -- especially if you're unsure of the settings of the recipient's email client.

We all have to create those monolithic messages now and then, so we may as well do it right. By 'right', we mean inserting the content in a way that helps the recipient best use the information. Pasting an Excel chart into an email message in Rich Text Format, for instance, yields different results than pasting it into an HTML-format message. Pasting it as a Microsoft Excel Chart object will let the reader change the chart, but it will also make the message larger and slower to load. Proper cutting and pasting is most important when working with table data: always paste it as HTML, RTF or a document object if you want the recipient to be able to copy and use that data. Select Rich Text or HTML from the Format menu within an email message.

Keeping work and private information separate is particularly difficult through a corporate Exchange Server, but even with a standalone package, it's no easy chore. You could set up Outlook with an Exchange Server email account plus a personal POP3 account, but keeping the email from intermingling is close to impossible, because Outlook stubbornly refuses to deliver email to more than one mailbox. If you need to keep your personal email totally unconnected to your business email, we suggest using Outlook Express as your personal email client.

If you must use Outlook for everything, consider selecting your personal email folder as the Inbox -- at least the Exchange email will remain on the server without mingling with your personal email. You can also maintain separate address books and calendars using the tools we explained earlier to effectively filter and selectively synchronise your data. Finally, if you have an assistant managing your business schedule, take the time to mark all relevant items as private and use the Delegates option to restrict viewing privileges; don't just give him or her free rein with your life.

This is just a small sampling of Outlook's not-so-well-known features that can help you work more efficiently. For more tips, check out the sources listed in the following 'Out looking for help' and 'Punch it up with plug-ins' pages; Outlook's own online help link is also useful.

Looking for other users who've been in the same boat as you? Some great places to start are the Microsoft Office discussion groups and the microsoft.public.outlook newsgroups. Here, knowledgeable non-Microsofties pop in to answer the questions you post.

Also, several third-party consultant sites send out newsletters or post tips. The best of these include Slipstick Systems and Amrein Engineering's Exchange Resource Center. The Amrein site is devoted to Microsoft Exchange Server issues, but don't overlook Exchange Server sites when searching for nuggets of Outlook wisdom.

You should also check out OutlookPower magazine, which posts the same type of content you see in newsgroups in an e-zine format.

When Outlook can't fill your needs, it's time to start searching for a third-party utility or add-in to fill the gap. Some of the best places to go looking for plug-ins on the Web are 4Team, Sperry Software, MapiStore, and ZDNet's own Downloads channel

If you get desperate, search and directory engines can be helpful, too. These include Soft411.com and Google's Outlook directory.