Everyday my inbox in one of my email programs gets jam packed with spam messages. In the midst of all this junk there might be potential clients who have sent me an inquiry message or an important message from one of our clients.
If you’re like me, I’m almost afraid of opening this box. That shouldn’t happen because every email program offers the user two great tools: message filtering and folders.
So you can keep the messages you WANT to see at the TOP of the list and those you really don’t want to see immediately can be organized into folders. That way you can look at them when you want. Or if you don’t want, just open the folder, select all and delete. Easy.
The email program I use (GoDaddy) has a function where I can create a folder to direct messages to — INSTEAD of in my regular email list! It’s pretty cool and if you want to stay organized, it’s a very simple way to do it.
So How Do You Keep Your Inbox Organized?
Here’s an example: I signed up for Kohl’s rewards and to get emails from various retail stores I frequently attend so the folder for these messages will be called, SHOPPING. You could set up each store to have its own folder but I’m simple and really don’t read these messages that often so this works for me.
After I set up the new folder, I then went to the settings in my email program.
From there I chose EMAIL MESSAGE FILTERS.
Once on that page I selected ADD NEW.
I clicked on the IF COMMAND BOX and selected FROM.
Then I typed in Kohl’s in the CONTAINS box.
I selected the newly created SHOPPING folder to the place I want the Kohl’s emails sent to.
After clicking OK, I’m taken back to the email message filters page and once I click on APPLY next to the new filter I’ve created, voila! The Kohl’s messages are moved.
To add JCPenny’s, Macy’s or other stores to this folder you just repeat the steps above and add each store name in separately, send them to the shopping folder and click apply now and they’ll move like magic.
You can name these folders simple names such as BILLS folder, PERSONAL folder, JUNK folder or what again, each sender can have their own folder. You decide.
For business owners like myself who receive lots of email messages, it’s imperative to stay organized. My goal is to have nothing superfluous in my inbox but I haven’t achieved that goal yet. But by setting up these folders it makes it easier to stay on top of things. A word of caution: if you use the email program on your desktop, tablet and phone, make sure you can see the folders on all three devices.
I went through a panic attack several months ago when I switched email programs, set up my folders then couldn’t see my folders on my phone. Disgruntled I called GoDaddy and asked how to sync the programs and the helpful GoDaddy representative took care of it for me. He restored all the messages and I had to start from scratch, but at least I didn’t lose the messages!
So there you have it. A way you can keep your inbox organized. You might have to play around with it for a bit to get used to the mechanics and formatting for each email program but try it and let us know if it helped you.
Staying Organized,
Kelley Stewart, CEO|Pet Sitter
sit-stay-play In-home pet sitting & more.LLC