You can choose from six different flag colors. The flags aren’t labeled, so you decide what significance to assign a particular color. You can also specify a follow-up date or time by adding a reminder.

Once a message is flagged, the flag appears in the Flag Status column .

Once you’ve got the messages flagged, creating an instantly prioritized list is as easy as changing to a new arrangement: you can arrange your messages according to their follow-up flags. We'll show you how to do this in the practice at the end of this lesson.

Note    Be aware that this arrangement only groups messages that you have flagged yourself. A message flagged by the sender will appear at the top of the Unflagged group when you arrange by flag. Why? Because Outlook recognizes that what someone else thinks is important may not be of equal importance to you. If you do agree with their prioritization, simply right-click the Flag Status column for the message and set the flag accordingly.

To mark a message as done (meaning that you've followed up), right-click its flag and select Flag Complete. Then, when you sort by flag status, you can get the satisfaction of seeing what you've already accomplished. (You'll see these messages toward top of the Unflagged group, just under messages flagged by the sender.)