I deal with clients on a daily basis and they are all very different in their expectations in relation to their emails, what is kept, where it is filed and what is deleted.
So let me ask you the question, “Do you spend hours searching for that email your line manager says he knows you have because it came from so and so about 6 months ago and it was regarding blah blah“?. To which you instantly reply to your line manager, “Yes give me a chance to have a look for it” and then you go into a cold sweat as you frantically begin the search for a needle in a haystack.
- Do you rely on your email search facility to find emails or can you go immediately to the folder where you expect to find it?
- Do you have have more than 20 email folders and do these folders have sub folders and those sub folders have their own sub folders?
- Do you have to click more than 5 times through folders to find what you are looking for?
- Is your filing system working for you?
I have a very simplistic view of filing my emails; I have main folders for example:
- Clients
- Finance
- Personal
- Projects
Each one of these folders will have an number of sub folders, everything from my clients is filed under ‘Clients’ then in the relevant Client A, Client B, Client C folder regardless of who it has come from if the subject matter is about Client A, it is filed under Client A.
I file all sent emails in a ‘all sent‘ *.pst folder. I never file ‘sent emails‘ under individual folders, there is no point. If I need to find anything, I go to the one ‘sent‘ folder and sort by send to or search.
Make sure you file regularly and keep your in box clear once you have actioned an email either file it or delete it. Oh and one more tip, never let a *.pst folder get larger than 500mg, it will become corrupt and you will loose everything you have filed.
