Organizing Email

These tips on organizing email can be used for most systems, however, the examples here are using Gmail. If you are looing to clear your gmail inbox, check out these suggestions. 

Email can be a huge time suck if you do not have a system and if you find yourself checking email many times a day. These are a few things that I have done, that have streamlined the process and cut down on the time spent on email.

If you have been asking yourself, How Do I Organize Email? I have some tips for you today! These have been great time-savers for me and I hope you find some inspiration here.

Organizing Email in Gmail

Keep in mind, the very first thing I do is assess whether I need to read the entire email. Spam email can make its way into my inbox and gets immediately deleted. The following steps are used for emails that require action, even if it is just filing.

Creating Email Folders

First, I created folders for my email.  For example, I have folders for the following:

• Finance
• Reference
• Sponsored
• To Respond To
• Subscriptions
• Expenses
• Brands
• Family

This not only gets an email out of my immediate sight, but it helps me when I am later looking for an email on a specific subject without having to search my entire inbox.  During this step, I also delete any emails I no longer need.

I also have some sub-categories. For example, under expenses, I have subcategories for personal and business. As receipts come through, I file them accordingly.

Similarly, under Brands, I have a sub-category for each brand I have worked with in the past. It is an easy way to keep the emails organized and available if I want to retrieve information.

 

Color Coding Emails

The next thing I did was reset my "star" options.  Google will let you star certain posts, but did you know that you can add different color stars?

I opted for just a few colors, to keep it rather simple, but you can have a rainbow color of stars and icons if you like.  I use the colors to denote priorities. It makes it easy to see which emails need immediate action. The color coding system is especially helpful in organizing email the first time you set eyes on it in your inbox.

 

Setting Tasks in Email

Next, I set tasks to some of my emails.  For example, an email might prompt me to join a link party or special event or involve future action on my part.  So I can turn that email into a task by adding it to my task list.  You can do this by checking the box to the left of your email and then click on the little box that says "more" and then click on "add to tasks".  A little task box appears that you can add items to and print out or email it for action.  I have found this especially helpful as I use lists quite a bit.

 

Create Filters

By creating filters, you can bypass your inbox for emails that you do not need to see every day. For example, I have any emails that say "is now following on Twitter" go directly to the archives. This allows me to access the emails if and when I want, but does not require the email to land in my inbox. I choose to keep these emails and review them every month or so, then they are deleted. By bulk scheduling these, it has become a huge timesaver as they never hit my main inbox.

These are just a few of the things I do to organize my inbox.  I access my email about three times a day or so and file the emails in the appropriate folders.

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What tips do you have to organize your email?

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