How to make your own address book (and why you’d want to)

Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Organization > How to make your own address book (and why you’d want to)

January 30, 2023

Have you ever tried to call or email somebody only to realize you didn’t have their contact information? Or maybe you were eventually able to find their phone number or email address, but only after hours of digging. Spend less time hunting down contact info by consolidating it all into a simple address book.

How to make your own address book (and why you’d want to) – Microsoft 365 (1)

Keeping the contact information of your friends, family, business partners, and coworkers in one place is essential if you want to stay organized. You may be thinking that you already have their contact information on your phone or computer—but what if that information fails to get backed up and your device is lost or stolen? Or maybe, you leave your job for a new company, only to realize that all the phone numbers and emails of professional contacts that you’d like to keep in touch with were stored in your old email that was deactivated when you left the company. Having an address book, particularly an online address book, is the best way to ensure you won’t lose precious phone numbers and emails.

What is an address book?

An address book is a designated book that stores the names, phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses of your contacts. Some address books even give you the option to list additional personal information on your contacts, like their birthday.

How to make your own address book (and why you’d want to) – Microsoft 365 (2)

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You can store anyone’s contact info in your address book, whether it’s your favorite takeout restaurant’s phone number or your mother-in-law’s. But to keep your address book organized, you may want to store the contact information of those whom you know you’ll need to contact regularly.

How to make an address book

Nowadays, not many people have physical address books. Having a digital address book is easiest because you can quickly search for your contacts within your device or document. Plus, a physical address book is easier to lose.

The easiest way to keep your contacts organized digitally is with Excel. It’s easy to view and insert information into each row and column.

Use a template

Consider using an address book template to easily store your contacts. With a template, you won’t have to spend time manually making a list of your contacts in Excel. There are plenty of free address book templates out there that can quickly be customized.

Organize your contacts

When you use an address book template in Excel, you may want to consider color-coding your contacts based on how you know each—for example, you can make rows pink for friends and orange for coworkers. Or you can a new spreadsheet within the document for each contact category, for example, a tab for family members, a tab for college friends, and so on.

If the address book template you select doesn’t have a notes column, add one in. Taking notes on your contacts will allow you to store additional important information on them—for example, maybe your coworker has warned you not to call them after 6 PM. You can write “do not call after 6 PM” in your notes to reference if you later forget when they said not to call them. Taking notes can also help you remember how you know them. Adding a notes section to your address book is also a great place to store work information—for example, if you met an interesting person at a networking event, you could take note of the company they work for.

Back up your address book

Store your address book in a cloud, like OneDrive. That way, you’ll never lose your contacts, and you can access and update your address book from anywhere.

Clean up your contacts list

Go through your address book at least once a year to review and delete contacts. Maybe you stored someone’s contact information three years ago but haven’t had a reason to message them since. Or maybe you realized that some of your contacts have new emails or phone numbers that need to be updated. You may also realize that you have duplicate contacts in your address book that you can merge. Decluttering your address book will keep it organized.

Creating a digital address book is simple and completely worth it. There’s nothing more frustrating than needing to call or email someone, only to realize you no longer have their contact information saved. Keeping all your contacts in one place is key to staying organized and stress-free.