A few months ago I surveyed people on how much mail they have in their inboxes and how often do they purge them. I was surprised to see just how much is being kept. The highest was 17,969 in someone’s inbox. I still can’t get over that one. On one hand it is great for my husband since he works for a data storage company but the organizer side of me cringes that there is so much virtual clutter out there.
I believe you should treat email just as you would a piece of paper. If it is important enough to file then by all means create a virtual file folder and move it in there. Create your folders just as you would in a filing cabinet. Just remember to ask yourself if it was in paper form how long would you keep it. I purge my paper files each year but do my email files every month, otherwise the task is too overwhelming. As I open each email I will file it immediately if I know I need to save it, but I will keep it in my inbox if it needs action. I like my inbox to only be
one page long at any given time. It serves as part of my items to do list.
Now don’t forget your sent file. I can’t believe my husband has over 13,000 in his. I like mine to be zero as much as possible. If it is an item I need to wait for an answer on I move it to my inbox/todo folder, if not I file or delete it. I don’t always have time to do this each day so I make this a weekly task.
Folders in your mail system are meaningless unless you back them up. Using a service like Yahoo Mail or Gmail is a good way to go for personal mail. If you work for a large company chances are your email is on their server and is backed up. Since I am self-employed and have a business email, I need to import my email via
software. To ensure my data is safe I use an online backup company. I would
love to hear from people your numbers and how you manage your email.