Take Advantage of the Shortcuts PaneIt is time to learn about the Shortcuts pane. Most of your work in Outlook has to do with using and managing Outlook items. But what about all the other stuff you need to keep track of, or that you want to be able to get to easily? This is exactly where this little-known component of Outlook comes into play. 
The Outlook Shortcuts pane. This handy pane is a place to stash shortcuts to almost anything:
The easiest way to open the Shortcuts pane is to use the CTRL-7 keyboard shortcut. When you open the pane, you'll immediately notice something different. Unlike when you open other Outlook panes, when you open this one, the rest of the panes don't change. This allows you to put things into the Shortcuts pane without losing track of whatever else you were doing in Outlook at the time. Dissecting the Shortcuts PaneThe Shortcuts pane can hold individual shortcuts as well as groups of shortcuts. In addition, you can use the links in the lower part of the pane to add new shortcut groups or create new shortcuts.When you first open the pane, you will likely see a Shortcuts group in the pane, with some shortcuts already in place, like one leading to Outlook Today and another leading to the Microsoft Office Online web page. You may also see a My Shortcuts group. If you don't, I suggest creating one as a place to store shortcuts that you always want to be able to find quickly (like the shortcut to Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild in the figure at the top of this page). The Add New Group link does exactly that. Click it to create and name a new group heading in the Shortcuts pane. Similarly, the Add New Shortcut link allows you to add new shortcuts by opening the Add to Navigation Pane dialog box. Select a folder and click OK to add it. 
Add Outlook shortcuts here. However, there's a gotcha here. The Add to Navigation Pane dialog box only offers you the option to add shortcuts that point to Outlook folders. So how do other kinds of shortcuts get into the pane? That question leads us into the general topic of how to use the Shortcuts pane. Using the Shortcuts PaneUsing this pane is straightforward. Use the CTRL-7 keyboard shortcut to open the pane if it isn't already open.Open and close groups by clicking the plus or minus sign to the left of the name of the group. Use a shortcut by clicking it once (no double-clicks required in this pane). This opens the folder or file, launches the application, or takes you to the associated web page. Add a new group by clicking the Add New Group link and entering the name of the new group. Add a shortcut to an Outlook folder by clicking the Add New Shortcut link, which opens the Add to Navigation Pane dialog box. Add a shortcut to something other than an Outlook folder by dragging the item to onto the name of the group that will contain the shortcut and dropping it. This creates a shortcut to that item. Once the shortcut exists, you can rename it by right-clicking its name and selecting Rename Shortcut in the menu that appears. Rearranging the order of groups in the pane, and the shortcuts within groups is a little clumsy. You need to right-click the group or shortcut you want to move, then select Move up in list or Move down in list from the menu that appears. Hopefully you won't ever feel the need to significantly rearrange your Shortcuts pane, because it is a pain. You now know all you need to know to put the Shortcuts pane to good use. From here you can:
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