Extremely organized.

There is a rules wizard function (also in Mozilla Thunderbird, just under a different name) that allows you to automatically filter e-mails into the folders that the user designates.

I have a million folders and file or delete things as soon as my responsibility to do something or respond is complete. I usually have less than 20 in my inbox at any given time which dictates my to do list. Like pp said, it is the most organized area of my life.

DH paid for some special program to index all of his email so he can get better search results. He ran it over thanksgiving and it took a whole day to index it all.

Anonymous wrote:Do you always organize your emails?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Anonymous wrote:It's the most organized area of my life. Filed by client or project name.

Ditto. I use my inbox as a task list and file or delate messages that don't require action. I have maybe 3 dozen subject folders for filing, and archive every calender year.

The downside is that having email in my inbox nags at me and can be a distraction from longer term projects.

Fwiw, I hate outlook's search function because it turns up incomplete results.

Anonymous wrote:Really? Every time I try to search for an email, I have trouble finding it, even though I am using good search terms. Is there a trick?

Folders. Then group the folders alphabetically: A-D, etc.

It's the most organized area of my life. Filed by client or project name.

Really? Every time I try to search for an email, I have trouble finding it, even though I am using good search terms. Is there a trick?

Anonymous wrote:My inbox has 12,431 emails that are not currently in folders (there are a bunch of folders with emails in them, but I rarely use them. I hate that I never take the time to organize them, but the search function usually does the trick.

same here. I did start a folder yesterday to organize a bunch of emails from a client with attachments so they were all in one place. I really want to use OneNote or something like that but haven't invested the time to get up to speed.

I gave up organizing it, I get a TON of email, most of which is not actionable, but b/c of our culture is necessary for me to keep for a papertrail. I used to move everything to folders based on project, but that takes a ton of time, and I found that it was quicker for me to find emails through search then trying to figure out which folder I put it in anyway. I have the following folders, so I only organize the ACTIONABLE emails:

To Do
To Review Later
Waiting

I have created QuickSteps to move things from one folder to the other, and mark them for followup at the same time.
Anything that is not actionable stays in my inbox. I have one archive folder for every year I have been at the company. Works for me.

I organize some but not most. Research showed that as long as it's all searchable it's faster to find things than spending time putting things in folders to organize.
I do move things to project folders after a project is done that way it's in one place

Yes.

My inbox has 12,431 emails that are not currently in folders (there are a bunch of folders with emails in them, but I rarely use them. I hate that I never take the time to organize them, but the search function usually does the trick.

Yes, otherwise I can't function

Do you always organize your emails?