HOWTO: Organize Email

Today I received an emailed question asking about how I organize my email, saying it might be useful to others to know how I do it. And it seemed like an a quick and interesting diversion from a task that was getting a bit on the boring side, so I thought I’d dash off a quick blog post about it. Right now I have “thousands” of emails—but only “hundreds” starred—and only 13 in my priority inbox. Here’s how I manage it.

1. I use Gmail. It absolutely kills spam, retains everything, and I can access it from anywhere. I would never use Outlook or another client again. If I’m not in a place where I can access Gmail, I’m not in a place where I need to be worried about people or be contacted. I use that time as quiet time, and don’t bother about it.

2. I keep everything. I have 400GB of storage space on Google and rarely throw anything out. Gmail is my brain. I may not be able to remember who you are—there’s only a few dozen people I can—but I can quickly access Gmail, do a search, and know exactly who you are and what are contacts in the past have been. (Scary, eh?—grin).

3. I have levels of priority:

• I use Priority Inbox in Gmail. I usually try to get to Inbox Zero every day in Priority Inbox. This is my primary goal. Items in Priority Inbox that require further action or followup are Starred. Priority Inbox has been a tremendous benefit to my day.
• I use Starred Items to track items in progress. When something requires no further action it gets given a special label “@Done” and the star removed. It then falls off my radar since I don’t have to worry about it (but I can always find it again).
• “Everything Else” just accumulates and I rarely worry about it. I check it about once or twice a day to make sure nothing has fallen through the cracks. I use it to tell me when I need to add some rules. Mostly if my system is working, every message in “Everything Else” is labeled by one of the five top-level folders above (each of which are color coded, so I can see at a glance the themes in my inbox).

4. I use a very limited and uncomplicated folder system. I used to use a complex folder system but it became too difficult to figure out which folder an email should go in. Every email goes (generally) in one and only one folder, and its clear almost immediately which folder it should be. This reduces complexity.

• Project Emails: I have up to 10 labels for existing projects, ranging from 0 to 9. I really try to limit myself to no more than 10 active projects at a time as I find any more than this, and I become overwhelmed. So project labels are, for example, 1_Bridge and 2_Travel. When the project is done, it gets renamed and put in a legacy folder.
• Notification &News: I have five “top level” folders in Gmail: Log, Networks, News, OIB, and Personal.
• Log: messages that are sent to me, about my personal life, from websites that I use. There are several subfolders: LifeNotifications for things like banking notices, etc.; Purchases for receipts of items purchased online; SocialNetworks for notifications from things like Facebook. These are all notices that have to do with my personal life.
• Networks: these are messages sent to e-groups and forums related to networks that I am part of (e.g. Ethne, Lausanne, etc.)
• News: newsletters and such, organized into a variety of folders: BizLetters, CurrentEvents, Denominations, MissionAgencies, Mobilization, Missionary Newsletters, NGOs, Persecution, Social Issues and Technology.
• OIB: my variant of OtherInbox (see below) which includes notifications not about my personal life, organized into subfolders: Advertisements, Entertainment, Finance, Genealogy, Gardening, Health, Home, Jobs, Newsletters, Real Estate, Shipping Notices, and Social Networking. This is all the not-quite-spam stuff that I want to retain for potential future use but which is of really very little use on a daily or even weekly basis.
• UPG: information related to partnerships focused on specific UPGs.

5. I experiment with Gmail-helping tools. Any tool I use has to work with Gmail and has to reduce my level of complexity. For several months I used OtherInbox, which took care of all of the notification emails. But about a month ago I discontinued using it, because its automatic recognition of certain kinds of emails began messing up and I couldn’t delete some of its filters. So now, I have a different process: when a new email comes in that is “ham” (e.g. notification) I religiously set up a rule for it. I am now testing Xobni for Gmail as well, which is a contact management system originally for Outlook. I’ll see how this works over time. It should help me see who I am presently in touch with, who I’ve been in touch with over time, and who has fallen out of regular contact.

That’s pretty much it. Hope it helps.