Outlook Tip: Send Threads You Don't Want to Read Straight to the Trash

We've got dozens, if not hundreds, of e-mails vying for our attention every day. Yet for every mission critical thread about your marketing plan and strategic TPS deployment, there's one in which Rick sends you pictures of a kitten wearing a pumpkin hat. Here's a trick for teaching Outlook what threads you don't want to see, so it can delete them automatically upon arrival.

The magic ingredient is the new Conversation feature in Outlook 2010. Not only can you arrange e-mails in Conversation view -- which groups together all the messages and replies in a related thread, but you can banish conversations you don't like from the Inbox.

To do that, find an e-mail or a thread you have no interest in -- and will never need to respond to. Right click, and choose Ignore. You'll be asked to confirm your selection, and then you're done. All future replies to this thread will bypass the Inbox and go straight to the trash.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Drewski Mac