Organizing Emails Works for Me
Posted in Mixed Bag and tagged with Works for Me on March 19, 2008
What does your email inbox look like right now? Can you tell which emails need replying? How can you tell if an email is worth keeping?
My solution: keep everything. Of course I don’t keep spam or other solicititations, but I’m talking about all the real email. I keep it all.
This means that I have a lot of email sitting out there on a server somewhere. But that’s okay. I might need it someday, and I’m not willing to get rid of it.
However, keeping the tens of email I get each day (and you might get more) would become cumbersome fast. Without an organization system, I would have to sift through them all to find the one announcing when next week’s fellowship is or what time my flight is.
That’s why I have an email filing system. When an email comes in and I read it, I immediately file it in one of several categories (school, family, friends, church, etc.) if it requires no further attention. Most email providers allow you to use folders, and if yours doesn’t, get one that does (I like Yahoo). The only emails that remain in my inbox are those that I have to respond to. Once I have responded (or recorded an event, or registered for a website, etc) and am done with it, I file that email away as well.
This system allows me not only to find old emails that I need again, but to find the emails that still need attention very quickly without having to keep track in my head what I still have to take care of.
Sorting emails…works for me!
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March 19th, 2008 at 7:54 am
We are too alike. It is scary. I have separate folders for different emails. And I add stars next to ones that are extremely important emails.