You will find three things that you currently mustn't do if you wish to effectively manage your email. The very first is not arranging your email. Over several years I've observed people have a problem with email programs which is frequently an issue of arranging email not because of something wrong with program.
For the latter, I had an example of someone struggling with their email. On closer examination they had over three thousand emails in their inbox! Of these emails, ninety-five percent had been read but they had been left there and eventually the software program got to the stage where it was no longer able to handle the size of the inbox and stopped receiving new emails. This is of course presents two problems. Firstly, no new emails could be received and secondly, finding emails would be an impossibly time consuming task. In this situation the person had different folders to file the emails but it hadn't been done for a considerable length of time. In this situation, the person needs to go through and sort what can be deleted, what needs to be filed and what should never have been received in the first place. This leads to the second important point.
There is a functionality with most commonly used programs to filter incoming messages (or any sort of messages). Using this in the above example, they could have sorted incoming email into different folders which would have eliminated the need to sort the emails after they had been read. Some people prefer to read emails in their inbox and sort later but this can save valuable time. It also helps you to see who your emails are from easily without going through thirty emails. If you sort by folder it will let you to see very quickly if you got fifteen press release emails, two that you have to deal with urgently and thirteen that can wait until later in the week. This helps you better prioritize your time. They will also usually let you filter by other methods than just sender - subject line, to (if you have multiple email addresses this is very useful), date and size so you can set up your own archive folders to archive items older than a certain date. Making sure you have a lot of folders set up in your email will help you easily find messages too without having to use the search functionality - it gives you that extra option to help manage your email better.
Finally, make sure you backup your email regularly. You need to do this so you've got a record of your communications - this is invaluable. I've been in the situation of losing all of my emails and its terrible because if anyone asks you anything relating to past activity or communication you don't know where to start. So make sure you back up regularly. While this is not a time saving activity it will save you a lot of work later on if you have to try to recreate what has already been lost.
To summarize, you need to sort your emails when these come in, after they came in and back up regularly. This will help not waste time coping with your emails but later on if you want to uncover that elusive little bit of communication.
For the latter, I had an example of someone struggling with their email. On closer examination they had over three thousand emails in their inbox! Of these emails, ninety-five percent had been read but they had been left there and eventually the software program got to the stage where it was no longer able to handle the size of the inbox and stopped receiving new emails. This is of course presents two problems. Firstly, no new emails could be received and secondly, finding emails would be an impossibly time consuming task. In this situation the person had different folders to file the emails but it hadn't been done for a considerable length of time. In this situation, the person needs to go through and sort what can be deleted, what needs to be filed and what should never have been received in the first place. This leads to the second important point.
There is a functionality with most commonly used programs to filter incoming messages (or any sort of messages). Using this in the above example, they could have sorted incoming email into different folders which would have eliminated the need to sort the emails after they had been read. Some people prefer to read emails in their inbox and sort later but this can save valuable time. It also helps you to see who your emails are from easily without going through thirty emails. If you sort by folder it will let you to see very quickly if you got fifteen press release emails, two that you have to deal with urgently and thirteen that can wait until later in the week. This helps you better prioritize your time. They will also usually let you filter by other methods than just sender - subject line, to (if you have multiple email addresses this is very useful), date and size so you can set up your own archive folders to archive items older than a certain date. Making sure you have a lot of folders set up in your email will help you easily find messages too without having to use the search functionality - it gives you that extra option to help manage your email better.
Finally, make sure you backup your email regularly. You need to do this so you've got a record of your communications - this is invaluable. I've been in the situation of losing all of my emails and its terrible because if anyone asks you anything relating to past activity or communication you don't know where to start. So make sure you back up regularly. While this is not a time saving activity it will save you a lot of work later on if you have to try to recreate what has already been lost.
To summarize, you need to sort your emails when these come in, after they came in and back up regularly. This will help not waste time coping with your emails but later on if you want to uncover that elusive little bit of communication.
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