Do you feel stressed every time you look at your Inbox? How many e-mails are just sitting there in your Inbox that you plan to get back to someday?
I have seen clients with hundreds and even thousands of e-mails in their Inboxes. Their Inbox is a massive filing cabinet and action-list rolled into one.
It’s like using your desktop (I mean your physical desk – not the one inside your computer but the one your computer is actually sitting on) instead of a filing cabinet to file all your important papers. Imagine the chaos if you left papers on your desk after you had read them.
Your Inbox needs to be used like a To-Do list. It should contain only the e-mails that you still need to read or take action on.
After reading any e-mail:
- Keep it in the Inbox if you still need to take action on it
- File it OUT of the Inbox into another folder if you need it for
future reference - Delete it if you don’t need it for future reference
Once you get into the habit of doing this, you will be amazed at what a useful tool your Inbox will suddenly become.
Don’t use the Deleted Items folder for filing old e-mails
Some users take control of their Inbox by Deleting the e-mails so that they end up in the Deleted Items folder.
They are using Outlook’s built in Trash Can to store their important e-mails???
Please don’t do this!
It is very easy to accidentally clear out your Deleted Items folder and lose all your e-mails. In fact there are automated tools that do this for you to reclaim space on your hard-disk.
Delete item’s that you don’t want to keep! File your important e-mails in project folders created inside Outlook!
Get started NOW with a “Still to File” folder
If you have hundreds of e-mails sitting in your Inbox, here is a quick way to get started.
- Create a folder inside your Inbox and call it “Still to File”. (Right Click on your Inbox and click New Folder)
- Drag all e-mails that you have already worked on out of the Inbox into this new folder.
You will now only have e-mails in the Inbox that still need your attention.
Doesn’t it feel good to be able to easily see only your still-to-action e-mails in one place.?
When you get a bit of time, remember to clear out the e-mails from the Still To File folder into dedicated folders for each project or case that you are working on.
Tip 4 in our e-book shows you how to create a Project based E-mail Filing System in Outlook…
Click Here to download your own copy of the special report
Move E-mails out of your Inbox at the click of a button
You can greatly reduce the time it takes to clear your Inbox while increasing the chances that your e-mails are filed in the correct folders using a special Outlook add-on…
QuickFile for Outlook is an inexpensive user-friendly Outlook add-on that greatly simplifies the filing of e-mails to the correct folders.
Find out more about how QuickFile can simplify your e-mail filing by Clicking Here.
There is a fully functional demo version that you can download and try out for yourself.
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Thanks for making me think. I never thought about it that way.
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