13 Oct Why you should quit filing your emails in folders
Why hello organised and disorganised friends! Are you using folders in Outlook or labels in Gmail to organise your emails?
And have you stopped to think why?
The whole idea stems from paper days. When we would categorise a note or file a letter in some really neat and logical way so that we could actually re-find it one day.
But those days are gawwwwwwwwn.
In that time, it was quicker to take time to file properly so that it could be retrieved faster. [As compared to the hours it would take to track something down if archived shambolically].
And I challenge you to seriously rethink your folder habit!
In my view… just like binders wrapped in special archiving ribbon are dead, so too are folders.
Eep! I hear some of you super organised types freaking out… “But how on earth will I quickly see all of the emails on a project in one folder or see all of my orders neatly stacked under a Sales label?”
It’s simple.
It’s called search.
And search for our inboxes has become so much more advanced than the dawn of email…
And it is actually quicker to archive every email and simply search for what you need when you need it.
Think about it… how many emails do you file every week? Say it’s 1000.
And how many times a day do you need to retrieve something? Say it’s 3 times, 5 days a week.
Now say it takes 5 seconds to file every email, and 15 seconds to search and find for an email.
With a quick bit of math… you’ll pretty soon see that it’s a whole lot quicker to search for the 3 emails a day that you actually need than it is to file 1000 emails a week into folders.
Don’t believe me?
Well, try it.
I challenge you to quit moving your emails to folders. And simply start archiving them. Then, get going with search.
Go on, try it!
Helpful Little Hack™: Get to know the magical little operators that make searching easy.
For example, look for an “exact phrase” by wrapping your search in quotation marks. Exclude a word from your search by using the minus sign before the word you want to – exclude. Specify the sender using from: or the recipient using to:… the list goes on!
Check out these search tips for Gmail and Outlook.
Achieving a Zero Inbox has just become 1000 times easier! Game changer. You’re welcome. 😉
📸 by the @seargreyson