Follow Your Folders to Email Bliss

Maybe you're that person. If you're not, you know someone who is. That person is the one with the stacks towering, teetering, and slumping across their desk. Occasionally they find what they need when they need it, but mostly the stacks just grow larger as the chaos increases. If only they had a filing system! Unfortunately, too many of us manage our email like that person manages their desk.Just as allowing documents to stack up on your desk is a recipe for disaster. File cabinets are your allies in document organization. Folders are your allies in email organization. All but the most archaic clients allow you to create email folders so get started by assessing the different buckets of information that your email fall into. For instance, you might have folders for: Customers Suppliers Prospects Employees Keeping your email organized in folders like this will help you tame the beast, but it's not enough. You need subfolders too. In most situations, email folders are easy to move, rename, and combine so don't be shy about adapting your folder hierarchy as your needs evolve. For example within your "Suppliers" folder you might have a folder for each vendor. Suppliers --Acme Widgets --Main Street Do-Hickeys --XYZ Services By keeping emails in specific, defined folders you'll be able to find exactly what you need quickly, but more importantly, you'll do a better job of keeping important emails so they'll be there when you need to find them.