Sometime ago, I took a look at my colleagues email client, most of them had many many folder, many many subfolder, and many numbering to sort folders… I used to admire them, how can they so diligently sort and configure many rules to sort them into folder. These form of setting often slow down my outbox. Recently i tried a new approach, it improves my ability and efficiency in replyingemails, and keeping things simple. Today, modern OS, has powerful search engines, so it is really needless to sort them into folder hoping you can pinpoint the email in future.

Right now, my email only have 5 simple folders. “Inbox”, “Sent Items”, “Follow-up”, “Hold” & “Archive”.

• My daily goals, is to keep my “Inbox” empty, yes i mean empty.
• “Hold” is for email that i need to wait,
• “Follow-up” are emails i set reminder to myself to do something.
• “Archive” means simply i am done with the mail

Then how about the mails you wish to sort from specific pple or topic, use “Search Folders”, they are superb effective without moving your mails all over the place.

Check out the book Upgrade your life… and the full explanations by Gina Trapani at her blog.