Microsoft Outlook Training 101

If your inbox is running your workday instead of the other way around — this is the day that turns Outlook into a workspace rather than a fire hose.

Who delivers this: Christopher Ross · Microsoft Office trainer for professional and administrative teams · classroom training delivery since 2004 · MA Candidate, Learning and Technology, Royal Roads University

Outlook 101 is the practical day for people who already live in Outlook and want it to stop being a source of background stress. By the end of it you will have a working inbox triage routine, your calendar will protect the time you actually need to do work in, and you will leave with a small set of habits that compound across the next six months — not a list of features to memorise.

Who this is for

• Fit. Professionals, executive assistants, project managers, and team leads handling 50–300 emails a day and a calendar that someone else can put meetings on.
• Fit. New managers inheriting a busy inbox and the email habits of their predecessor — without the time to figure it out by trial and error.
• Fit. Teams switching to Outlook from Gmail or another mail client and wanting the conversion to actually land rather than leave half the team using webmail.
• Not fit. People who want to be taught keyboard shortcuts as the point of the day. Shortcuts come up where they earn their place; they are not the curriculum.
• Not fit. Anyone hoping for productivity-guru philosophy. This is an Outlook day, not a personal-development workshop.

Prerequisites: a working Outlook account (Microsoft 365 desktop, Outlook on the web, or the Outlook app for Windows or Mac), and an inbox you can show me with real volume in it. That is the bar.

What you’ll be able to do after

• Run a four-fold inbox triage in under fifteen minutes a day — delete, respond, defer, file — without thinking about it.
• Build Search Folders and Rules that handle the routine traffic before it lands in your view.
• Use the calendar as default-busy rather than default-available — with focus blocks that survive a meeting request from your boss.
• Capture tasks from email without context-switching out of the inbox, and review them on a cadence that means they actually happen.
• Run Quick Steps for the multi-action tasks you do every week, so a five-click sequence becomes one.
• Send email at the right time using delayed send, and read your own outgoing email like a stranger before it lands in someone’s inbox.

Curriculum, in four themed blocks

1. The four-fold inbox. Delete, respond, defer, file — the only four things that should happen to any email. Why “reply within 24 hours” is the wrong target. The triage pass at the start of the day, the working pass mid-morning, the close pass before you log off. Search Folders for the things you actually look at every day, Rules for the things you should never have to look at.
2. Calendar as a workspace. Default-busy versus default-available. Focus blocks that survive a meeting invite from your boss. The right way to use working hours, time zones, and the “optional” checkbox. Recurring meetings that should be a one-line email instead. Booking links and Microsoft Bookings when they earn their place.
3. Tasks, Quick Steps, and the things you do every week. Capturing a task from email without breaking focus. The To Do integration, and where it falls short. Quick Steps for the multi-action sequences that come up weekly — archive-and-flag, move-and-categorise, forward-with-template. Categories that mean something, not a rainbow of colours nobody remembers.
4. Habits that compound. Delayed send. Signatures that respect everyone’s time. Out-of-office that does its job. The autoreply hygiene that stops two people leaving the office and emailing each other’s autoreplies forever. The end-of-week review that takes ten minutes and resets the inbox before Monday.

Real examples we’ll work through

• A live triage of your actual inbox — thirty minutes in, the visible queue is half what it was, and you know why.
• A Search Folder for the recurring meeting requests you would rather batch than handle each as they arrive.
• A Quick Step for the five-click sequence you do every week — collapsed to one button.

Where this fits in the Microsoft Outlook track

Shaped for: Professionals, executive assistants, and team leads handling high email volume, a busy calendar, and a task list that needs to actually clear.

The full training catalogue shows how the Microsoft Office courses sit alongside the WordPress training track.

Format, duration, and pricing

Outlook 101 runs as a single full-day class, six hours, in person across the Niagara region or online over Microsoft Teams. The two half-days across a week format works well for teams who cannot block a full day; the half-day compressed format is a working introduction rather than a complete curriculum.

In-person delivery includes room setup, reference materials, a post-training summary for managers, and travel within the Niagara region. Online delivery includes the recording if you need it. Final scope and quote confirmed on the discovery call.

Currently booking through Q3 2026. One public cohort per quarter; private team engagements scheduled separately.

Product names referenced on this page — including Outlook, Microsoft, WordPress, and Teams — are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Training offered here is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of these companies.