Yesterday I told you how to use a custom form to save the Journal field checked. This trick also works for Private and other fields (as does in-cell editing from the earlier tip).
If you make a custom form to set the Journal or other fields for new items you really don't need to change the existing messages to use the custom form, but if you want to, the easiest way is with DocMessageClass, a free utility from the folks who developed Public Outlook for sharing calendar and contacts with small workgroups.
Download it from DocMessageClass.
Published May 25, 2004. Last updated on June 17, 2013.