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I need a better way to organize my outlook emails and crap. Badly (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter culdeus
- Start date
BowieMercs
Footballguy
Ctrl-A, Ctrl-Q, del
avoiding injuries
Footballguy
You can set up "rules" in outlook that emails automatically get sorted to a specific folder if they contain certain words. I have set this up, and for my situation it works very well.
culdeus
Footballguy
I've been able to use this to filter out some of the crap that I never read, but for stuff I do need to read it's not all that useful.
culdeus
Footballguy
It's enough. Really I'll be managing about 5-6 major tasks long term and another 10 or so minor tasks. So finding an effective way to grouping these tasks as they come in other than dragging and dropping into folders as they show up would be ideal. Someone has to have a task oriented management system for outlook.
Fat Nick
Footballguy
I gave up trying...I realized that I typically remembered enough about when I got important e-mails and who they were from to just filter/search my whole inbox as fast as I could find the one folder dedicated to something. I have so many projects and side-tasks going on at work that I can't keep them all cleanly filtered. I do better just knowing everything is in my in-box than trying to filter things into folders and catching 80% of it.
avoiding injuries
Footballguy
Yeah, that's the situation of mine that I was referring to. Good luck.
snogger
Footballguy
I actually treat my outlook inbox like my mailbox at home.. keep it empty... I read the message and either reply and trash, just trash, or move it to a folder for future reference. If my inbox gets over 5 messages older then 2 days in it my Ocd kicks in.
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avoiding injuries
Footballguy
Howard Stern, is that you? He said almost the exact same thing last week during his show.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
I tried for YEARS to do this and agree with these - it's not possible if you want more than just Oulook rules.
I also moved from futile attempts at keeping it organized and just keep them all in my Inbox. Took me a while to get used to it but searching and filtering make it manageable.
wilked
Footballguy
I am going to go out on a limb and say that those with no system for managing their email are probably not managers.
Someone asked how many emails a day you get. You ignored the question, but it is an important one. If it's less than 50, you should be able to manage them with folders. The key is to manage them in bulk at intervals. Don't ever let an email interrupt you. Turn off any notifications. When you come to a pause in your work, take 5-10 mins and attack the email. The user above who keeps a clean inbox knows how to be efficient.
Reply immediately to all you can, then move on. If you can't reply immediately try and delegate. For the rest (and it shouldn't be many) put in a 'to do' folder, and block the first 30 mins of every day to clear those.
Most important to all of that is responding immediately and putting the email behind you. Do that and you will be in control of your email.
Should you get more than 50 emails a day, spend time figuring out how to get fewer emails. Delegate emails to others (respond to sender, please remove me from this list and instead email so and so). If the email is not actionable you don't need it. If people are cc'ing you needlessly talk to them and encourage them not to
Don't rely on an 'app' to do stuff that is wel within your ability. An app can't do those things I mention above
Someone asked how many emails a day you get. You ignored the question, but it is an important one. If it's less than 50, you should be able to manage them with folders. The key is to manage them in bulk at intervals. Don't ever let an email interrupt you. Turn off any notifications. When you come to a pause in your work, take 5-10 mins and attack the email. The user above who keeps a clean inbox knows how to be efficient.
Reply immediately to all you can, then move on. If you can't reply immediately try and delegate. For the rest (and it shouldn't be many) put in a 'to do' folder, and block the first 30 mins of every day to clear those.
Most important to all of that is responding immediately and putting the email behind you. Do that and you will be in control of your email.
Should you get more than 50 emails a day, spend time figuring out how to get fewer emails. Delegate emails to others (respond to sender, please remove me from this list and instead email so and so). If the email is not actionable you don't need it. If people are cc'ing you needlessly talk to them and encourage them not to
Don't rely on an 'app' to do stuff that is wel within your ability. An app can't do those things I mention above
Excellent posting.
If you need help with this, spend a few hours and read getting things done by David Allen. It will change your life.
culdeus
Footballguy
I'd say 50 or so emails require me to do something myself for a kickoff or RFI. Another 50 are someone saying something is complete and ready for assignment for next level person or to close it out (Takes 30s to look at backlog). Another 25 are just useless CC and things that don't require me to do anything but delete.
It's the long term stuff that needs more archival than anything. Plus I like to look back sometime at the complete task steps for summaries and say A finished here B finished here C finished here and so on.
Sometimes I feel like I spend way too much time pushing stuff into folders and there might be something I could automate a little better.
offdee
Footballguy
I make folders by names of people I regularly deal with. I get an email....
- read it
- trash if garbage
- reply if can answer right away
- file it away to persons folder if don't need to address. I've found out that most follow ups, questions, "hey do you remember when I sent you..." can be found easier sorted by person than by project name.
- if I want to remember the email or it's an action item I need to do than I keep it in my inbox. Then my inbox acts as my To-do list. If I have to scroll in my inbox than that means I need to get caught up. I usually have around 10 emails in my inbox...the rest are filed away.
- read it
- trash if garbage
- reply if can answer right away
- file it away to persons folder if don't need to address. I've found out that most follow ups, questions, "hey do you remember when I sent you..." can be found easier sorted by person than by project name.
- if I want to remember the email or it's an action item I need to do than I keep it in my inbox. Then my inbox acts as my To-do list. If I have to scroll in my inbox than that means I need to get caught up. I usually have around 10 emails in my inbox...the rest are filed away.
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E-Z Glider
Footballguy
I would never go back to Outlook or folders or needing to group/organize things. Google search is 100X more efficient than any system you could possibly create in Outlook.
culdeus
Footballguy
They typically do. Most of them are simple quick responses like "Where is XYZ (person/thing/order) and when is it going to be ____?" A better tracking system would be ideal, but mostly I just search outlook for XYZ and then parrot back a response.
Nugget
Footballguy
ffldrew
Footballguy
Howard uses Lotus Notes and Getting Things Done templates and principlesHoward Stern, is that you? He said almost the exact same thing last week during his show.
sdp1226
Footballguy
Dragging each individual email into folders can be time consuming and a PIA.
Try using the keyboard shortcut CTL+SHIFT+V
This will pop up a Move Items window. From here, you can start typing the name of the folder and it should bring you down to the desired location. Click OK or ENTER and the email will been moved to the highlighted folder. This should save a ton of time.
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
Wilked has the solution lined out for you. SET VERY LIMITED TIME TO DEAL WITH EMAIL. I start my day and clean out my box. Everything that needs an answer from me, I open in it's own window and minimize unless it requires immediate response. I read and file by project all of the cc's (I need to know what's happening on projects even if it doesn't require my response**) and delete the garbage. I respond to the immediate response emails (10-15 mins) and then I forget email and do my work. About 20 mins before lunch, I work through the non emergency responses and then read whatever new emails have come in. Same process.
About 20 minutes before I go home I rinse, repeat.
**The beauty of reading the cc's, in my case, is I can often see problems, conflicts, pointless email fights, etc. developing and put a stop to it early. All while enjoying my morning coffee and FBG Christine Michael upgrade updates.
About 20 minutes before I go home I rinse, repeat.
**The beauty of reading the cc's, in my case, is I can often see problems, conflicts, pointless email fights, etc. developing and put a stop to it early. All while enjoying my morning coffee and FBG Christine Michael upgrade updates.
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the moops
Footballguy
Some people can't set out a limited time each morning for emails. I get emails throughout the day and it is part of my job to respond to them in a timely fashion. Not first thing in the morning or last thing at the end of the day, but within an hour of it being sent.
50 emails a day is pretty damn manageable.
50 emails a day is pretty damn manageable.
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
This is good advice that I will take to heart. My inbox is starting to overwhelm me.
I am in a real estate firm with high level responsibility in acquisitions, operations, and legal. I get way more than 50 emails per day, but this includes broker packages, solicitations, newsletters, people CCing me, then tasks that I may or may not need involved in, and of course important communication in any of my 3 main responsibilities plus some ....
I am just looking for suggestions on rules, how to prioritize or color code or flag what comes in, etc to clean my box faster and make it and my response times more efficient.
Right now I use lots of folders but just drag manually. If I am out of the office at all, it takes me days or the week to dig out depending on my travel schedule
Should I make rules for broker packages and newsletters and reciew those folders when i can? Sweep all emails where i am only CCd via a rule into a folder (but I worry I will miss something important)? What goes into the to do folder and how do you sweep into it; flag them with reply priorities and make a rule?
ps. I have no clue how to make rules.
I am sure we have some outlook super users here. help!!
Tia!
whiskey7
Footballguy
Right click on a message and then hover over "Rules" from the list of options that pops up. Click on "Create Rule". From there, you can tell Outlook how you want it to handle messages of that type. For example, if you want all messages from a specific sender (whether that be a person or server) with a certain string in the subject (eg "Daily Real Estate report") sent to you (or a group you're part of) routed to a subfolder named "Daily Reports", you can have Outlook do that for you. After you create a rule, it will give you the option to run the rule against all the messages in your inbox which is kinda nice. You can also just route everything from certain senders to specific locations. Maybe everything from your boss goes straight to a specific folder. Lots of options.
I get several hundred emails daily and rely heavily on rules to help keep organized. I'm in technology and get a ton of system generated stuff I don't necessarily have to read. If I didn't use rules to move them around to various folders, it would be difficult to make sure I read the ones that do need my attention.
Fat Nick
Footballguy
What Outlook REALLY needs are rules that you can set to run AFTER a message is red. If I filter it to a sub-folder, I won't see it or read it. I'm not checking what essentially becomes multiple categorized in-boxes. Now if they had it so AFTER I read it I could filter it to a folder, I'd be sooo happy.
belljr
Footballguy
Fwiw, I rarely delete emails from outlook and have found the search box to be good enough when needing an older email.
I have co-workers who literally spend hours each week sorting emails in various folders and imo, they are wasting far too much time.
I agree that rules can be very helpful if set up properly.
Whatever works for you...
I have co-workers who literally spend hours each week sorting emails in various folders and imo, they are wasting far too much time.
I agree that rules can be very helpful if set up properly.
Whatever works for you...
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I create rules for all the news emails to go into certain folders.
I reply almost immediately to everything that demands only a response.
I file anything that does not require a response.
That clears the vast majority of emails.
I then keep the remaining emails in the inbox - usually 10-20 - as a "to do" list.
For example if someone has sent me an email asking for something, I'll leave it in there until it's been done.
That way whatever is in my inbox reminds me what needs to be done.
I reply almost immediately to everything that demands only a response.
I file anything that does not require a response.
That clears the vast majority of emails.
I then keep the remaining emails in the inbox - usually 10-20 - as a "to do" list.
For example if someone has sent me an email asking for something, I'll leave it in there until it's been done.
That way whatever is in my inbox reminds me what needs to be done.
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culdeus
Footballguy
This is basically what I have just decided to settle on. The search function works good enough.
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
I have 60+ active properties, 15 active lawsuits, and any number of acquisitions in some stage at all times, so I need folders and subfolders.
culdeus
Footballguy
But I mean if I want to search for an active case
Cow Tipping James Vanderbeek April 2016
That usually gets me pretty close to what I need.
Fat Nick
Footballguy
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
Mister CIA
Footballguy
Yep. I have one folder called "Read." Any message in my inbox that does not require action goes immediately into the Read folder.
If I need to find an old email, i rely solely on the search function. 99.9% of the time I find exactly what I need within a few seconds.
Folders are for the birds. I you still feel compelled to impose structure over your email, use categories where you can assign a message to multiple categories
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
That isnt really feasible for me. I get buried daily.Mister CIA said:
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