organization is a personal thing. one person’s messy piles of stuff are another person’s stacks of neatness. i, for example, have a hard time concentrating on a task if there are stacks of papers or books in my visual field. as a result, my desk is empty except for what i’m working on. people that walk by my office will often comment about how clean my office is; they don’t know it’s just the way i work best. i’m sure they think i’ve got ocd. meh.
the same is true for my email inbox. if i open my inbox and see a long list of emails i really don’t know what to do with myself. i mean, where do i start? at the bottom, top, or somewhere in the middle? it’s defeating before i’ve even started. so to help myself out i made a bunch of folders, and when i’m done dealing with an email i either drag it into a folder or i delete it. that means that what’s in my inbox needs my attention (i.e., i haven’t yet dealt with it). in this way it works as a task list because what’s in the inbox has to be dealt with, or the inbox gets more full. things also don’t fall through the cracks because it’s gotten missed in a long list of emails (how many times have you heard, “oh, i must have missed that one”?) – if it leaves my inbox it means it’s been considered. and when it leaves my inbox i feel a little sense of accomplishment (whatever gets me through the day, right?).
some people are more concerned than i am about keeping emails. i get so many of them that i tend not to be sentimental about them. other people save entire threads, even the emails that say, “ok” in response to a previous email. me, not so much.
i thought i’d write about this since a colleague recently told me that her new year’s resolution was to get better organized. maybe others have fascinating email filing techniques they’d like to share? if so, leave a comment.
