Organize emails? Who does that and why would I need to know how?
These days the email in boxes fill up quickly, especially for bloggers. You get emails from friends, readers, other bloggers, contact forms, PR, etc. By the end of the day if I left everything unchecked I could easily have 400 plus emails. After going to bed at 2am through 10am this morning I woke up to 102 alone. All of this email can leave you spending too many hours a day figuring out how to prioritize your responses and leave you feeling a bit overwhelmed, especially if you have several email accounts.
The best solution I have found is to use the Thunderbird Email Application – free from Mozilla.
In one place you can send and receive email from all of your accounts, gmail, domain, yahoo, hotmail, etc. Each account has its own folder. The trick? Create sub folders! These are especially helpful for those of you that write product reviews and host giveaways on your blog.
Key Sub folders
- Inbox – This is where all of your incoming mail lands, think of it as the sorting center of the USPS. As emails come in, filter them into the appropriate sub folders which are mentally prioritized with a response order.
- Open – Get a lot of pitches? Toss them all in your Open folder. Create sub folders based on the company name to organize reviews and giveaways that you have accepted but have not yet written.
- In Progress – When a pitch is received, accepted and written, move the company folder here. You’ll know exactly what giveaways are currently in progress.
- Closed – So you posted the review, emailed the rep, closed a giveaway and contacted the winner, move the company folder here. It’s a great way to save the emails, know how to find the company rep if need be at a later date and it declutters your inbox.
Once you have the main folders set up, organization becomes a breeze with subfolders within each section.You can easily group all of the emails between your reps into one folder noted by the company/product name and move each folder as it progresses until it’s finally saved in the Closed folder.
About Cat Davis
I use Microsoft Outlook but agree that organization is very important. I’m big into folders. I have TONS of folders.
I have lots of folders, too. But yours are broken down even further. I have folders for “affiliates,” “reviews/giveaways,” “Twitter,” & “Design Projects.” Think I’ll have to add the “open/in progress/closed subs to it. It’s a good idea. Thanks.
this is a wonderful idea
Awesome post, I have mine all separated in folders and all are labeled for what they are
love it, plus the different colors make it look cool! LOL I’m like a kid with this stuff!
I have outlook too and just started creating folders. Thanks for the folder options!! Very organized!
Oh, so very helpful. Thank you. And right on time, since I was one email away from a breakdown.
thank you for this post! I have 5 email accounts and yes its time consuming sorting them out! I have too many unread emails. I think I’m going to try Thunderbird Email Application.
I do something similar in my yahoo email acct. I have tons of different folders with different info and emails, etc. in them! This one looks cool though…I’ll have to check it out!
I’ve gotta try that one! Thanks for all your advice. Always love to hear your tips!
Like Kimberly, I have Outlook Express and have tons of folders. It’s the only way I stay ‘sane’. LOL Great article!
Thanks for sharing these tips. : )
Awesome tips! Thanks so much
Great article! I use folders and “rules” in Outlook Express. I create a rule for emails from different people rather than the “to” address. I have separate folders for about twenty friends and family that I hear from regularly. The title turns bold when I have a new message, so I know instantly, that I have a message from Giselle or Mom etc. Then I have a misc folder for Friends and Family that don’t email as frequently. I have one for Blog Newsletters (the ones from you and others) another for Stores I Like. One for my bank (they send me my balance everyday); one for bills (ie credit cards). I’m on a big List Serv and all those go into a folder that I check maybe once a month. It ends up that the only thing in my general email inbox is spam that I can run through fairly quickly or new newsletters that I haven’t set up a rule for yet. Everyone’s different but this works well for me!
I used to use Thunderbird and I did similar. I found myself between computers so I started using gmail and I have everything in labels so I can stay connected no matter what computer I’m on. I do miss Thunderbird though, I had my new email sound set to a cash register
.
Great post…. I use folders to keep things organized, too. I only get about 150 emails a day, and I thought I was going a little nuts, I don’t know what I’d do with 400!! You awe me!!!!
Great org chart! I personally like Gmail because it allows you to use both folders and tags.
I have my emails going into different folders as they come in and I move them around as I need to. It’s a great idea.
i have never heard of thunderbird. i may check it out because i def. need help w/ my emails.
when i was ready to give up i found your info. i feel like i just move around and stay lost. so much good info in these blogs as well as samples and giveaways. im going to put my e mails in folders and see if that helps. thanks
I just discovered this today while googling how to keep reviews organized. I LOVE the idea. Any other email tips you have to share would be great too. Thanks so much!