Imagine your mail being delivered to your door and you come home, glance at the envelopes to see who sent them, and then leave them at the door in a pile. Then you continue to do this every day, and the days stretch into weeks and months — perhaps even years. How would you feel coming home to this mounting pile at your door every day? A bit overwhelming, isn’t it? Many of you face this scenario every day, but instead of your physical mail, it is in the form of your email. Consider adopting the following tips for organizing your email clutter.

Create Folders

By creating folders in your inbox, you automatically sort your incoming mail into categories. This will reduce email clutter and allow you to increase your productivity. You will be able to focus on one category at a time.

Create Rules

Rules divert incoming email into designated folders according to who sent them or other criteria appropriate to a specific project or subject. This option is handy for newsletters that you subscribe to and want to keep in a folder to read later. It will prevent email clutter in your inbox.

Flag Emails

By adding flags to emails, you can remember follow-up on actions. You can select actions like Follow up, Read, or Reply. You can also set a “Date Due” option so that you know when the action must be completed.

Chu’sing a Solution…

Most email programs automatically sort folders alphabetically from A to Z. What if you wanted the folder named ‘Important Project’ to be at the top of the list and not after the H folders? There is a simple trick I use quite often. Using a typographical symbol or number as the first character in the name will cause it to be first in the order. Naming the file ‘!mportant Project’ will ensure it is at the top of the list. If you have several projects, consider using numbering them according to priority such as 01-Project, 02-Project, and so on.

If you need help streamlining your workplace for success, contact us, to discuss how we can help.

Image by gabrielle_cc from Pixabay