How do you organize your email in Outlook?

[Anonymous]

OK, way off topic, but my in-box has 6,743 emails in it. And I do use folders for some things but I can't seem to clear out my inbox. How do you keep yours organized?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, way off topic, but my in-box has 6,743 emails in it. And I do use folders for some things but I can't seem to clear out my inbox. How do you keep yours organized?

Folders and the Rules Wizard.

[Anonymous]

Yup. You set rules up so that emails from xx person or mailing list go into specified files automatically. Also keywords (esp. if you're using professionally). I use it for work that way and find subfolders to be critical for my personal organizing.

Tools
Rules and Alerts
New Rule
Then experiment with the options. For work I have two rules for each deal. One rule says all emails from x, y, z go to subfolder "project". The other rule says all emails with "project" in subject line or body of the email go to subfolder "project."

[Anonymous]

Wow, not OP but this may be one of the more useful posts on this forum! I'm about to do that now before I go on maternity leave and come back to one billion emails and an overcapacity inbox!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup. You set rules up so that emails from xx person or mailing list go into specified files automatically. Also keywords (esp. if you're using professionally). I use it for work that way and find subfolders to be critical for my personal organizing.

Tools
Rules and Alerts
New Rule
Then experiment with the options. For work I have two rules for each deal. One rule says all emails from x, y, z go to subfolder "project". The other rule says all emails with "project" in subject line or body of the email go to subfolder "project."

Yes. I do this with a lot of the mailing lists I'm on. Then I'll add an exception for those rare instances when someone emails that message to me specifically with a question or note or something. So it's something like, "All emails from [mailing list] go into [folder] unless sent only to me" or "unless my name is in the To: line."

Once you play with it, you'll love it. It's a very useful tool.

[Anonymous]

I can't keep up. I must get 40-50 emails a day directed at me, and get cc'd in on double that. It really is overwhelming and I drop the ball so much because of it.