Friday, September 16, 2011

Does your inbox look like this?

[image redacted]
Anyone who knows me knows I like things to be in order.  I firmly believe "everything has a place" and get borderline crazy if it's not where it belongs.  One place I've tried but failed to organize is my e-mail.  I feel like I'm always behind, or can't find something I received or sent out...

I've got a separate e-mail for personal use and book blogging.  My blog e-mail has lots of folders:
Authors After Dark
BEA 2012
Blog Help
Blog Misc
Books I've Won
Giveaways (that I'm hosting)
Paperback Swap
Review Requests (subfolder for competed or rejected)
Pam has her own folder for reviews and such *waves at Pam*
and I just started a few folders for publishers

And yet, it's a mess.  I spend more time trying to find stuff than I do actually sending it.  I once sent myself an entire blog post and then promptly lost it.  Poor Pam has to put up with my e-mails like "what's your address again" or "what books do you have?" Lucky for me she's got a sense of humor :)

It's not like I'm inundated with e-mails or have government secrets in there; I just can't ever seem to find something where I think I put it.

Anyone have any suggestions?  What am I missing? 
How do you organize your inbox?




5 comments:

  1. I, too, use labels (folders). I've got: Blog Comments, Goodreads, Google Alerts, NetGalley, PBS, Review Requests, Twitter, and then I have labels for each month (Sept., Oct., Nov., etc.).

    In addition to labels, I also create filters to direct not-as-important emails to their respective labels/folders so they don't clog up my inbox. So anything from Goodreads, Blog Comments (from my blog and blogs I've sub'd to), PBS, Twitter, etc., those go straight to their labels/folders for me to read when it's convenient. That way I can go to my inbox and not get bombarded with stuff I can read later.

    If that makes sense LOL

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  2. I move some stuff to folders, but I mostly end up with a ton of crap in my inbox. So I treat it like a database and do searches. Works pretty well... if I can remember the key words I need.

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  3. Lol we are kind of alike. I do have a folder for books I have won, and Lis of course have her own folder, and even a subfolder.

    Then different publishers have different folders and recently I also played around with gmail and now they got their own colors too

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  4. *waves* At least you remember my name though. That's gotta count for something. ;P

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  5. The BV: Maybe I need more folders, lol. I like how you've got yours set up!

    Chris: I never thought of a keyword search!

    Blodeuedd: Color coordination sounds like something that would help...

    Pam: You know me too well, lol :)

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