For those of us not yet lucky enough to work in a paperless office, there is usually the need for the ever present file tray perched on the side of a desk. There will be at least one tray - the In tray, if not also Pending and Out, or similar. If, like me, your In tray seems to wobble precariously when anyone passes threatening the contents into cascade, a bit like a torrent of paper leaves shaken from a mighty oak during an Autumn gale, then you're probably one of life's ditherers. However, in a desperate attempt to clear the decks, even I would consider it absurd to move Pending items into my waste paper bin ... but this is exactly what many of us do with our e-mails.

The fact is that people use their Deleted items folder in Outlook as a temporary resting place for messages they're not quite sure what to do with. Should they be stored? Or simply left suspended until you are certain they can be deleted? Or is it that you really have no idea where the best place would be to refile your messages?

Outlook 2010's Quick Steps provide users with the ability to quickly file messages as they finish working on them, replacing the need to use the Del key to file e-mails. However, Quick Steps can do much more than move messages to a folder. Quick Steps support many of the actions available in Rules Wizard so you can use them to forward messages to a person or group, flag items for follow-up - and more. Quick Steps can be assigned to a Ctrl+Shift+number key, and Outlook 2010 includes some predefined Quick Steps, or you can create your own.

Apparently 70% of people do file mail into folders in Outlook. In Outlook 2007, and every release before that, there were two ways of filing manually: either you dragged it to the folder or you clicked Move to folder. Now, enter Quick Steps. Quick Steps allows you to file mail into a folder (by default the last folder you filed mail into) and mark it as read in one click. The second Quick Step, Move to: ? is there to give you the idea that you could have a series of Quick Steps for each folder you file into regularly. Once it is set up, you won't see this dialog again. Think of Quick Steps as easy-to-use, one-click buttons that perform multiple actions at once.

For anyone who does file email, they are essential - one click and that conversation is filed away and marked as read. If you constantly send e-mail to the same people - then, with one click you have a new e-mail to your team. As your work style in Outlook changes, you can configure Quick Steps to work the way you do.

To open the Manage Quick Steps dialog, click the Expand arrow in the lower right corner of the Quick Steps section. If you are new to Outlook 2010, you will notice that the program has adopted the Ribbon in the Inbox. Microsoft claim that the purpose of the Ribbon in Outlook is to help you become more efficient in getting your work done - be that processing e-mail in your Inbox (Mail Home Tab), managing your Calendar (Calendar Home Tab), or doing work in Tasks (Tasks Home Tab). In designing the Ribbon, Microsoft went for consistency so that you'll always be able to look to the left side to create a new item or to the right side to find a contact - and to the middle to get what you need to do, done. In Mail, the centre of the Ribbon is all about Quick Steps. The first time you click on a Quick Step (other than Forward: FYI, Meeting Reply, or Reply & Delete) you'll be prompted to set it up.

Quick steps are especially useful when e-mail conversations are turning into epic sagas. In these circumstances it might be better just to sort things out face to face. Well now you can. Simply click Meeting Reply and set up a meeting with the people on the conversation. There are also a series of Quick Steps that rely on your corporate address book to help you: To Manager, Team E-mail, and Team Meeting. These default Quick Steps come pre-populated if your company's address book knows your organisation. Or you can decide who is on "your team" the first time you click them.

To create your own Quick Step, just click Create New or drop the gallery to use a template from New Quick Step. If you click Create New, you'll be able to pick from a list of actions. Note that in this dialog you can also change the icon (just click on the dot in the upper left), pick a shortcut key, and write your own custom tooltip to help you remember what this Quick Step is for.

And if you decide that you have got over your filing phobia, you can get even more sophisticated and Manage your Quick Steps. Rearrange, duplicate, modify, and delete any Quick Step from the Manage Quick Steps dialog. If you need to, you can always reset Quick Steps back to the defaults. To get to this dialog, just click on the small arrow in the lower right corner of the Quick Steps group in the Ribbon. Another useful shortcut is to right click on any "move" Quick Step to easily navigate to that folder. Or hold down the Control key while clicking on the Quick Step to navigate to the folder.

Now there's no excuse for filing everything in the Deleted Items. It just takes a couple of Quick Steps to eliminate that Hokey-Cokey filing system, "that's what's it's all about".