We live an era of technology and eventhough I live by snail mail, I still interact with people through good old e-mail and keeping my e-mails organized is very important because a cluttered mail box will usually distract me. I have three e-mails (work, personal and dym+other official things) and I use both gmail and outlook and I find both very easy to work with. Here are some tips on how to keep your mailbox organized
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1. Use labels/categories
In my work mail, I have color coded all my mails accordingly. My categories include "new arrivals, customers, social media, current campaigns, finance" among others. Everything has a colour and it's really easy to search mails and everything looks pretty neat. Outlook software has the categorizing function and you can even categorize something twice or more if it falls into several categories.
2. Use the flag button
Ah, what would I do without this button. I love that outlook will put all mails in a separate "task" folder when you flag it so you can easily access it and see what's due and when you are finished with that task, you can click the flag again and it'll appear as a completed task. This makes it so easy to keep all your to-dos in one place and keep track of things.
In gmail, I don't really use the flagging function (is there one?) so I just have a tab called To-do and move my mails there so I can easily access things to do and do them.
3. Keeping inbox clean
I hate getting spam mail so I always delete any useless messages that I absolutely do not need. If there is a mail that is not work related but I might need it, I keep them the label "misc" so it stays organized. Since my gmail is used to create several of my other accounts on websites and things, lots of mails and updates that I don't need come there so I have created filters to make sure that all of them gets deleted and does not enter my inbox. You can easily create filters by clicking the filer button and following the instructions. You can also get rid of spam by filtering your e-mails every now and then. It's seriously worth spending some time doing that.
4. Having a separate mail for social media accounts
I don't know about you but whenever there are new sites, I always want to check it out and register but I don't want updates of those sites on my work or dym mail, so I use a personal mail to do that so any updates, subscriptions or any other things like that will not go to more important mail boxes. This saves lots of time when you are going through mails and also helps you be more focused when doing work. If I got subscriptions and newsletters on my work e-mail, I would be inclined to spend more time checking them out rather than working so it's pretty cool. Also I can easily subscribe to my favourite blogs, newsletters and more using my personal mail and keep pen-pals and it is pretty convenient as well.
5. Using mail clients on you phone
This is seriously a life saver. I don't usually log onto my laptop unless I am at work so I can't check my mail that often but since getting a smart phone, I've installed both outlook and gmail (I still don't have my personal mail on my phone which I am trying to get but since both my work and personal is outlook, it's kind of hard and uh so many complications) and it seriously is so so easy. I can easily look up mails, do quick replies, get rid of junk and flag important mails on the go.
6. Get rid of the "Sent from" signature line
Maybe it's just me but I seriously get bothered when I see that people don't change the default signature. I don't need to know where you sent me the mail from, whether it's your iPhone or microwave and I feel like it's a very weird thing to do. So, the very first thing I did after installing both mail clients, I removed the signature from the phone.
7. Have a signature
I think it is very important to have a signature and while my work one has a set signature for everyone (which I think is pretty cool!) I used to have one for my DYM one which all DYM people ave but since I also use that mail for classes, I didn't want my students knowing about all the other aspects of my life, so now I just have my name and I'm thinking of getting rid of it too but always have a signature ready when you are mailing certain people (like clients) so they can easily reach you and it looks very profesh.
So that's some tips and how I organize my mail. Do you have any more to add to this list?
Sent from says a thing or two when you live in a country where it may take an hour to get to your desk. It says that you are out and near your desk. Oh yes, it also makes a difference when communication can be subtle unlike in Maldives where we tend to be more direct.
ReplyDeleteah, that makes a lot of sense. I guess I never thought about it that way. Thanks!
DeleteYes, it really doesn't make much sense in Maldives, especially if you aren't travelling.