It's time for a Big Spring Clean up!!
Let's face it, we are all tired of the winter season and as soon as the weather starts to turn warmer we feel more energy and get that "time to clean up and throw some stuff out" feeling.
Believe it or not, we tend to keep things a lot longer than we should and that tends to be true even in our office. When was the last time you cleaned your inbox?
Getting organized is only painful for the initial cleaning. Think of it as opening your closet and all of your stuff falling out. It may seem overwhelming at first but as you start looking things over you realize you have a lot of stuff that you just don't need anymore. A great way to organize your e-mail is to start with Sub folders. If you keep your inbox just one folder it's like throwing your newest shirt into the closet and shutting the door. You may group them in anyway that best suits you. For instance you could have them be categorized by their urgency, the type or e-mail or who its from, it's really up to you. You could break it down by cases, administrative tasks or different projects. Anyway that puts your mail into folders that make sense to you is a good place to start.
The next thing you want to do is as e-mails are coming in say to yourself should I read and delete it, mark it to be followed up on or read and file it. Taking an action on each e-mail keeps you organized.
For those pesky e-mails that come every week that you thought you wanted to sign up for but never have time to read, simply unsubscribe. If you haven't read the last 3 or 4, you probably aren't going to read the next 3 or 4. Simply open the e-mail and click on the bottom where it says unsubscribe and unsubscribe. You will cut down on a lot of unwanted material this way.
Lastly, make sure that when your e-mail starts asking you to archive that you archive when you can. Outlook offers some archiving tools to help you out. Check your company's policy to find out how long you have to keep certain e-mail.
Once you have taken the time to get organized, try to stay organized. Sub folders make searching e-mail easier because you know just where you put things. You know how good it feels to have things neat and organized. You will be surprised how good you feel when you can find important e-mails quickly because everything is where it is supposed to be.
