Organize Your Email

It's Thursday again and time to do more organizing! How has it been going for you so far? I know that it can be overwhelming but I encourage you to stick with me. Do things as you have time but don't stress if you miss a week or two. Just jump back in where we are.

If you are just joining us, we have been getting organized using Jennifer Ford Berry's Organize Now book.
 
It has some great info and tips on organizing various parts of our life and home. You can see past posts here:

Week 1 about Organizing Your Mind and Life Vision HERE,

Week 2 about Organizing Your Priorities HERE,

Week 3 about Organizing Your Schedule HERE

Week 4 about Organizing Your Cleaning Schedule HERE.

Week 5 about Organizing Your Personal Information HERE. 

Week 6 about Organizing Your Finances HERE. 

      Week 7 about Organizing Your Bill-paying System HERE.

        Week 8 about Organizing Your Receipts and Taxes HERE. 

Week 9 about Organizing Your Files HERE

Week 10 about Organizing your Magazines and Newspapers HERE.

This week we are working on organizing our email. This is a BIG one for me, the queen of procrastination. I actually have three email accounts and they all tend to fill up with email that I need to sort and delete or respond to. I have one for personal, one for business and one for junk that is linked to my facebook notifications. I know it is better to simplify and keep it down to one if possible. I think everyone needs a separate one for work stuff though. Do you agree?

Well, if you are like me and have way too many email in your inbox, then check out some of the tips in the Organize Now book to help you lighten your load. 

This Week's Goals:

1. Delete, delete, delete all email that you don't need from your inbox and your sent box! Do this monthly.

For some of you this won't take too long. But for many of us, this could be the only step we get to this week. And that's ok! Do it at your own pace.

2.  Set up Folders

My husband is so organized. He has folders organized by category to sort through email that he receives, is a priority, needs a response, etc. If we are going on a trip he will create a folder with important email pertaining to that such as flight info, hotel, car rental, etc. I am working on doing this with my own email. Baby steps....:)

3. Remove your email address from lists

We get so much junk email, don't we? Some of these are easily fixed by simply asking to be removed from their list. 

4. Update your address book

Tips:

If you don't have time to reply to an email, click "reply" and then put it into your drafts folder. Check there often so you don't forget about it.   

Process an email soon after you receive it. This could mean replying and deleting, saving to a folder, putting in your drafts to reply later, etc. This will help to keep your inbox from getting cluttered up. 

I hope this post was helpful to you. I know that email clutter can bog me down as much as physical clutter in my home. By addressing it and then staying on top of it, it can remove a lot of stress that we don't even realize we have from it.

For more tips on Organizing, please read Organize Now.
 

Thanks again for reading and for your feedback. Keep it coming!

Next week we will organize our mail. 

Have a great day! 

Rebecca