I get so frustrated at my inbox. It just keeps overflowing, falling off the desk and onto the floor. I take it home with me intending to sort through and answer messages but IT doesn’t happen. I bring it back to work with me intending to tackle the darn inbox right away, but IT doesn’t happen. So, with today being Stroh Days and everyone local being involved in that, and it being too costly for others to drive just to sit/knit/chat with me, I’m tackling IT. Thank you, Outlook, for some cool sorting tools. So far, I’ve deleted 407 items, 47 of them unread. I’ve moved 532 messages to an “A” folder; 397 to a “B” folder and 751 to a “later” folder. This is just messages that need my attention in some way, not list messages to read. I have 616 more to go in the inbox itself. It is 3pm and I close at 4pm. Do I start responding to the A messages or finish cleaning out the inbox? I think since I’m in the cleaning mood, I’ll do the inbox. I’ll take my computer home with me tonight and while Haley is cutting out her pattern, I’ll sit and respond to the A messages. I think I can do that without being connected to the internet for the most part. That will help cut down on the reply/respond/reply issue I seem to get stuck in. ÂÂ
 I’ve recently discovered the flag system in Outlook. That’s one cool tool too.  Now, things that have a time deadline, I flag with the red flag so it stays front/center and stares me in the face everytime I open the computer. I’ve also started using PlanPlus for Outlook again so I can get back to keeping my lists of projects and get deadlines set up for the mailings. I’ve missed doing this and my organization really suffers when I don’t have my calendar and todo list on me at all times.ÂÂ
How do you stay organized? Lea-AnnÂÂ
The outlook calendar helps me and little alarms on my phone to remind me(set up with help from knitting daughter). Since I only use outlook at work- home is not too organized I guess:)
I am not as important as you Lea-Ann as I get, at most, 4 or 5 e-mails a day and sometimes not even that. I have had the same address for 15 years maybe, but I think, my provider has very good filters as I get very little junk. I have been to the junk folder once or twice and there is nothing in it, so no real reason to go there. I am glad you have organized things. The more organized you are the less hectic you feel. I know that from personal experience. Now just keep up the good organization skills you have set up and hopefully life will flow more easily also. See you in a couple of weeks. Trying to get the perfect car knitting figured out…
Lea-Ann…
Learn about rules and folders. All my email list stuff is sorted AUTOMATICALLY by rules I have set up. All my Knitting Machine lists and such go into one folder, Family goes into another, bizness stuff and bill stuff in another. I don’t have to do ANYTHING! Its automatic. Then I can go to each folder and deal with the task of reading each based on its import or based on the day (I only pay bills on Monday for example).
Of course my unread folder might have 200 items in it but my unreads are categorized by importance. The 100 spams are not important.
Hi Heather . . yep, I use Rules for automatic sorting. And my spams auto sort to spam. My unread folder is what is my inbox. At one time it had over 1000 messages unread. Of course, I scan them for importance, and move any that need immediate attention to the A folder but I did miss some. How do you sort the unreads by importance? Lea-Ann