Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Organizing emails

Update: Last week I casually asked whether people kept a messy desk or a tidy desk. Whoa! Who knew people would be so passionate about the state of their desk?  They are, and messy won by a huge majority. But what really interested me was that many people don’t use a desk at all. And some have multiple desks—including one woman who keeps a messy one and a tidy one. And by the way, after I posted the blog, I cleaned up my desk. Alas, it’s already on its way to messy again.

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In keeping with the theme of messy/tidy, I have a question for everyone: How do you keep your important emails sorted? I lose a lot of time every month trying to locate emails that I either received or sent with valuable information. During the search, I’m cursing people (including me) who tack an important piece of information onto the end of an email about nothing in particular.

Example, Subject line: My sister is getting married! The email contains all the juicy details and at the very end, the writer says, P.S. Joe Jones at the Mystery is Grand bookstore wants us to do a reading in August of 2016. Interested? The next couple of emails discuss the how, when and what about the event—but we never change the subject line. Five months later, I realize that the event is looming and I can’t find the emails. Sometimes I can’t even remember who the other author was.

Sure, my intention is to put it on the calendar the very minute. But just as I open the calendar my husband needs something right now or the dog throws up, or I suddenly realize I’m late….and the calendar loses.

And what about the reservations I make for a hotel at a conference, and they send me a nice confirmation. Do they send it with the name of the hotel? Sometimes (bless you, Hyatt). But then you get those hotels that are oh-so-coy. Their email address is something like Reservations@weareidiots.com, and the subject line is  “Staying 2 nights.” Thanks. That makes it 100% impossible to find your stupid confirmation. UNLESS I have been clever enough to flag it.



Which brings me to the email flagging system. It works pretty well as long as I:

1) Actually use it every time
2) Weed out old ones that are no longer needed
3) Use the right color of flag for the particular email.

What I end up doing is printing out a hard copy of important emails, which works pretty well as long as I do one of the following:


   1) Print it out
2  2) Make a hand-written note of what it actually pertains to (see cryptic email names and subject lines above)
    3) Don’t lose it
    4) Don’t misfile it.

I think I might start forwarding the information to myself with revised subject lines, which should work fine as long as I do it.

Any suggestions?





6 comments:

Marilyn said...

As you know, Bill and I travel a lot. This is the one email area in which I'm really organized. When we make reservations--air, hotel, car--I immediately print the emails, write on the top, right corner the destination and date for each, and file it in our "travel drawer," the place where we keep our passports, envelopes with leftover Euros and pounds, etc. As for other emails, I frequently find myself using the search function to find the tidbit information I know is hiding in one of them--almost always, as you noted, with a subject line that has nothing to do with the info I'm seeking.

Marilyn said...

As you know, Bill and I travel a lot. This is the one email area in which I'm really organized. When we make reservations--air, hotel, car--I immediately print the emails, write on the top, right corner the destination and date for each, and file it in our "travel drawer," the place where we keep our passports, envelopes with leftover Euros and pounds, etc. As for other emails, I frequently find myself using the search function to find the tidbit information I know is hiding in one of them--almost always, as you noted, with a subject line that has nothing to do with the info I'm seeking.

Di Eats the Elephant said...

Most email programs have a search function. It can be tedious looking through 10000 emails though. And you need to learn how each of your email's search functions work. I have multiple email accounts so that also helps me know which email account it's likely to be in. What I have been too lazy or cheap to do yet, , is learn how to set up Outlook on my personal computer and have all my emails come there. It's very easy to file emails or save emails to your regular computer folders if you want to file them outside of the email program. And you can have Outlook automatically sort and file your email when it arrives too based on criteria (rules) you give it.

Di Eats the Elephant said...

Most email programs have a search function. It can be tedious looking through 10000 emails though. And you need to learn how each of your email's search functions work. I have multiple email accounts so that also helps me know which email account it's likely to be in. What I have been too lazy or cheap to do yet, , is learn how to set up Outlook on my personal computer and have all my emails come there. It's very easy to file emails or save emails to your regular computer folders if you want to file them outside of the email program. And you can have Outlook automatically sort and file your email when it arrives too based on criteria (rules) you give it.

Terry said...

Yes, the search function does help in most cases. Why is it that the ones I really need are hidden in some cryptic manner? But you safe right. If I remember to file thins in their proper folder at the moment, it does work. Never heard of Outlook. I'll have to look into it.

Mary Griffith said...

Folders! Layers and layers of nested folders organized by topic.

I'm not sure I could handle my email at all if I didn't organize it all by topic. I've got big categories (writing, family,friends, travel, money, the nonprofit I've been on the board of, etc.), and within each category subfolders and sub-subfolders.

To take a recent example, I recently attended WPA, so I created a WPA folder, inside my conferences folder, inside my writing folder. All WPA-related emails, including registration, air and hotel reservations, shooting range background check, etc.) went there, so if I needed anything to do with WPA, it was right there.

Occasionally, there are emails that could go in two or more different folders, but I usually just pick one and use the search function if I forget which I chose.