So, as a communications tool for the twenty first century, email has many advantages, but for the vast majority of its users, many disadvantages and pitfalls too. A tool which is designed to ease communications and speed up the process of sending and receiving information, the basics of digital housekeeping mean that the weak link in the system is the end user. Once the end user puts into practice the fine art of effective filing, or uses a software product such as MoveIT, email will continue to be an excellent theory, and a nightmare to keep on top of.

It is a growing problem, and Outlook productivity is hampered for many people by the catalogue of junk and groaning mountain of unfiled emails, most of which we don’t seem to bear the thought of deleting…

Whatever happened to the humble letter sent my snail mail? They arrived, and each in turn was opened, read, and then dealt with according to its urgency? Why should email be any less effective? The reasons are several. Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that so many people today don’t take as much care with the messages sent via email than they would if they were sent by post. Failure to include a greeting, or make it clear what the message is about, or include a comment about whether a reply is needed, and even including the sender’s name at the bottom are all reasons why we tend not to take as much notice of emails.

By not attaching as much importance and value to emails we send, we reduce the overall value of the whole communications medium. This includes the tools included in email programs such as Outlook which are designed to help us keep on top of everything. This causes email overload as we fail to read through our emails, or respond to them quickly enough, and eventually the email stress will get to us when we realize we have several hundred messages which need filing. (sounds familiar?)

Not only is this problem reducing the overall value of the system, but it is slowing down the efficiency with which communications could be achieved using email. With an organized inbox and a program such as Outlook there is no reason why we couldn’t be more effective with our emails. However, as with any system of communication, the weak links are the people that use it (dare I say the knowledge of the people who use it?).

There are solutions, however, and it is by relying on a variety of solutions that the system can achieve its potential. The most basic step forwards is to begin to attach as much importance to an email as you do a letter – whether as the one sending or receiving the message. The fact that the sender never walked to the post box shouldn’t make any difference to the value of the message. If it was worth sending at all, then it must have had value. This is so much more true as we send emails. We need to remember to add importance to the email!

The other solution is to consider improving your email productivity by using a third party tool such as MoveIT. This can help speed up the process of filing your messages, meaning that you spend less time housekeeping and more time getting on with responding to those messages that actually require a response. MoveIT has been proven to reduce email overload for everyone who use it on a regular basis.

This results in reduced email productivity for your recipients, as they are required to spend more time identifying your message, its importance, whether it requires a reply and so forth. If they have any kind of filing system, then a poorly structured email may be happily dropped into a folder and left to grow old.

To assist your recipients, and to prevent such an email overload of useless, uninformative and unhelpful messages, here are a few basic tips. These will help to ensure that you help keep the whole email system fluid and useful, and help us all keep a slightly more organized inbox.

The first step is to consider composing a good and meaningful subject heading. This is all too often ignored, and emails arrived with ‘No subject’ as the title may well find the filing system transfers it straight to the junk folder. Keep a title short, so that it is easily read quickly, but meaningful. This will help the recipient to understand what the email is about, and will help them to know whether it is necessary to read it immediately, and whether any action is likely to be expected.

When people compose a letter, they often think very carefully about the structure. This includes things such as including contact details, an introduction, referring to or reminding them about previous communications or discussions, and then keeping the purpose of the letter plain. With emails, however, there can often be very little or no structure – frequently even omitting the basic ‘Dear So-and-so,’ at the beginning, making it reasonably unclear as for whom it is intended. Think carefully about these matters, since an organized email is more likely to be a read email, understood and acted upon.

Consider whether a reply is required. If you need a response, then say so.! Make it clear what you need to know, and by when, if it is urgent. People have enough email overload as it is, without replying to you to find out if you need a response. If no reply is needed, then again, it is helpful to make this clear so that there is no doubt on the recipient’s part. Often if it is unclear whether a response is required, the email will be left sitting in the inbox for ever more, snowed under by similarly ambiguous messages.

Here’s an idea; prefix your subject line with the following:

• FYI:subject line here… – the recipient will immediately know that this email is informational and no action is required from his side
• Action required: subject line here… – the recipient immediately knows he needs to action something based on the content of the email
• Response required: subject line here… – recipient is made clearly aware that he needs to respond to this email.

You can pre-append these with the word Urgent and so give your email some more importance. Of course one would not want to overly use the “Urgent part” as to avoid a “cry wolf” situation.

Finally, including your name and alternative contact details at the end of EVERY message can be very helpful. This especially, if the message is coming from an organization where there may be very many people sending such messages. At least that way, people know who you are and can try to get hold of you by other means if necessary. In addition to which, it is only polite. After all, you wouldn’t send a letter off to anyone without including your name at the bottom, so simply because you are using email to compose your message, why should that be any different?. All too often, the basic rules and courteous traditions associated with writing letters have been left behind and forgotten with the advent of email. Yet the truth is, the old traditional styles had many advantages, and eased communications far more than a simple button labeled ‘Send’.

Your comments are welcome!

The first method is very simply. Carefully highlight all of the emails in your inbox. Then, gently press the delete button.

Whilst this is certainly the quickest method, it isn’t overly conducive to email productivity, and you may find your Outlook contacts have something to say about your filing methods when they hear of your unique method of email management.

The second method is to spend several hours of your day ploughing through the stacks of emails in your inbox and responding to those that you can. The problem with this though, besides being an extraordinarily slow and inefficient process, is that it doesn’t essentially solve the issue. Your inbox will still look more like a telephone directory, and the next time you come to sort the matter out, you will end up re-reading many of the messages you read before – wasting yet more time.

Filing emails as you go along is a much better plan. Nobody tries to climb a mountain by jumping straight to the top, or even making the climb in one go. Instead, a little and often is the best approach here. By creating a few folders, filing emails that you have replied to into one folder, messages from certain people in others, and deleting those that are no longer relevant, you can begin to identify some order amongst the chaos.

An organized inbox is a rare thing, and is an enormous help when it comes to your overall Outlook productivity, but it is only by religiously keeping on top of the folder systems that you will retain control over your online communications. Whichever way you choose to keep your inbox organized is up to you, but success will only come if the system you use is easy and simple.

Thankfully, there is a company offering a fourth solution. This takes the idea of folders and automates the process for you, dramatically speeding up the whole process. MoveIT is an add-on specifically designed to work with Microsoft Outlook. It allows you to create a large number of dynamic rules and filters. The add-on makes sure first of all that you read the emails as they come in to your inbox, but then as soon as you have read them, with just a click of the mouse, the selected emails are “magically” transported to the correct folders. By simplifying the whole process, the filing of emails can be kept on top of, rather than being so very quickly swamped.

This means that, once you have read the important emails, rather than ending up with one large inbox stuffed full of everything, if you are logging on to do work, you can view only those emails in your work folder, or a specific project folder. This means you will not be distracted by all the many irrelevant emails which have been directed into separate locations. Having said that, if you are logging on in your own time, and don’t want to be bothered by work messages, view only those in your friends or family folders. This way, you aren’t wasting your valuable time carrying out filing – after all, a computer is supposed to work for you, not be a cause of yet more work for yourself.

Those users who have tried a solution such as MoveIT have noticed the considerable amount of time saved each day. They have likened it to gaining an extra day each month. It’s still not quite as quick as hitting the delete key, but at least you’ll still have your job when it comes to enjoying that extra day.

The problem is, that the list of emails in your inbox shouldn’t be there. Many of them are adverts and unimportant rubbish that could have been deleted a long time ago. Many more of your emails were useful at one time, but no longer serve any purpose. The fact that they are still sitting in your inbox is testimony to the fact that you have shunned the very idea of filing your messages. You have given up on being the proud owner of an organized inbox.

Studies have shown that users who keep their emails in the inbox, waste considerable amount of time more, then those users who file their emails. By not filing your emails, you’re basically shooting yourself in the foot.

The truth is, you are not alone. That in itself shouldn’t necessarily make you feel better, but the fact that there are so many people like you, who leave their emails in the inbox, has caused software manufacturers to devise a solution. Needless to say, the solution itself has been designed to be quick, simple and easy to use. After all, there’s no point having a tool to overcome email overload and to save time if it takes more time to learn how to use it than it manages to save.

One such solution is called MoveIT, and is an ingenious solution for email overload sufferers who are using Microsoft Outlook. It is an add-on, which means that it bolts on directly to the program, and needs very little setting up. By working with you to help you create a number of dynamic rules, it will then, at a single click of the mouse, instantly sort out all your selected emails into the appropriate folders. Unlike similar solutions, MoveIT only files those emails which you have selected, and not all the emails in your inbox.

This means that, rather than using the built in filters of Outlook that simply direct incoming email into designated folders, where they will be forgotten, you get a chance to see your emails as they come in. Only when you have actually seen them and/or acted on them, do you need them filed, and MoveIT will do that for you effortlessly.

For example, if you have sat at your computer ready to start work on Project X, you may begin by working your way through your inbox to review any messages relating to work and, specifically, this current project. However, you are likely to come across an email from your bank, an advert for an interesting product, a few jokes sent to you from your friends, and confirmation of an order having been dispatched. Very quickly you find yourself wandering away from the idea of work, and spending a considerable amount of time, simply wasting time.

By filing emails into a work folder, you could have a main folder for work related messages, and even a sub folder for messages which contain the keyword ‘Project X’. This means that when it comes to getting on with your work you can go straight to your Project X folder. The new messages you will have already seen, and all previous ones will be waiting for you. A good deal of time is saved, and you can then quickly identify the necessary responses, and increase your email productivity considerably.

Of course, when it comes to your own time, you can then enjoy all the new messages from your friends without being distracted by those pesky messages from work!

Any other ideas?

PLEASE NOTE: I receive way too many emails a day! I respond to emails between 8 – 10 AM, all emails in my inbox which I didn’t reply to by 10 AM are DELETED. If you didn’t receive a reply to your email and you need one, email me again. This is all done in order to avoid email overload and keep my inbox clean.

While this approach is indeed aggressive, it actually worked for me. I was able to perform the work I was paid to do from 10 AM to 5 PM. I had no regrets and no feeling sorry about the email which got deleted. Those people who used to email me and not get a response, ended up thinking twice before they emailed me. Not only did I have an uncluttered inbox I actually reduced others email overload. You see the less emails you send out the less emails you will get. It’s like a karmic rule of sorts. I don’t know how to explain it, but it works.

Unfortunately,  circumstances have changed and I am no longer able to adopt this approach. Instead I use MoveIT for my email overload and for keeping my inbox clean. MoveIT plugs into Outlook and helps you with your filing of emails. I now keep my inbox as my To-Do list. Everything that I’ve completed handling gets filed, on demand by MoveIT.  After using MoveIT for only 3 months, I wonder how I have even managed with out it.

We all have junk boxes or dump drawers, where anything and everything gets heaped up together. The strange thing is, we’re all perfectly content with this because we know, in our heart of hearts, that when we get a chance we will be thoroughly sorting that drawer out, and that will be a good day. We will feel good. Except that, for some reason, that day never seems to be today.

Unfortunately, this same level of procrastinated organization tends to filter through to other aspects of our lives, such as email. Does your inbox look like my cutlery drawer? Old rubbish you should have thrown away a long time ago jostling for space alongside really important items? If so, you may be suffering from email overload, and feel the tension building as your subconscious guilt admits that the whole idea of having an organized inbox is nothing more than a pipe dream. You always meant to create the ultimate filing system, but somehow, that day was never today.

The problem lies in considering where to start. You almost certainly have out of date emails that can be deleted, but to find them you need to work your way through scores of messages, many of which need saving. But where do you put them?

An organized inbox should only ever be used, if indeed at all, for new messages. Once a message has been read, it should either be deleted, or if it is necessary to save it, moved to a suitable folder, or subfolder. The sense in this is fairly obvious – you will know where to find information when you need it, just like being able to find the potato peeler beneath the pencils, or a pen that actually works.

The first stage is to actually create a folder structure. Even if the folders are empty, it gives you a starting point. A quick way of beginning the process of sorting your inbox out is to sort all your emails by sender name or email address. In Outlook this is fairly easy. Simply click on the title bar at the top of your email list, probably labelled ‘Sender’ or ‘From’. You can now see at a glance all of the emails from your Great Aunt Gertrude. These can be lovingly transferred in one block to your ‘Aunty G’ folder. The block of emails from the Boss can be transferred to your work folder, and so on.

To keep on top of this system, try using a tool like MoveIT – it’s an add-on for Outlook which will help you to identify patterns and rules with the emails you receive, and work alongside your folder structure. This means that, unlike Outlook rules which will file your incoming mail into different folders before you get to see them, you get a chance to see the new emails as they come in, but then with just one single click of the mouse, all your selected emails will be magically moved into suitable folders based on rules you define. This will dramatically increase the speed with which you can find them next time. MoveIT makes the process of creating rules simple and intuitive.

It might not help you find the right sized screwdriver in your cutlery drawer, but it will save you a great deal of wasted time searching for actionable emails in your inbox.

That’s quite a statement. Let me qualify it. Unless you’re prepared to take extreme measures on your emails, no one can actually reduce the number of emails they receive. We can’t reduce the number of incoming emails, simply because we don’t control that. The easiest way to be able to handle these vast amounts of emails is to put systems in place. That’s it! That’s the solution! “Devise a system that works for you, and persevere.” If you find yourself after a couple of days, struggling to handle your emails, then you probably need a new system, as the one you’re using is clearly not working for you.

I have used many systems and have never been able to persevere in any one of them. Call me lazy if you want. They were just too much trouble. Until I found MoveIT!

MoveIT plugs easily into my Outlook. The download was quick, and installation takes less then 60 seconds. The idea behind MoveIT is so simplistic I didn’t believe it could work. But it did.
Once MoveIT installed, it created a button on the Outlook toolbar. All I had to do now is say to myself: “My inbox is my to do list”. If I finish reading an email, I either respond to it, or file it. This is where MoveIT comes into play. It knows where you file your emails. This Outlook Add-On has its own engine, where you can very easily create your own rules, of where emails go to.
I have folders for companies I work with on a regular basis, and folders for individuals. As an example: I work with a company called Mobelli.co.za. The rule I created in MoveIT says: if sender email address contains @mobelli.co.za then file it into Mobelli folder. It took me 5 seconds to create that rule. Here’s the trick! The filing happens ONLY when I choose to. Unlike Outlook rules & alerts, where emails are filed only when they are received or sent, MoveIT files your emails on request. Highlight one or multiple emails, press the MoveIT button on the toolbar, and voila. The emails are gone, and always to the same folders. I have over 100 folders. If this wasn’t automated, I would have to think where to file this email, and then drag it to the correct folder. If you do that right now, how many times have your finger slipped, and the emails is now filed “somewhere” there’s no way you can say to which folder it dropped. If it was an important communication, you’re going to spend in addition to the almost 20 seconds you spent filing the email manually another 4-5 minutes trying to find that damn email.

I now have over 150 rules (using MoveIT for over 5 months). When I started, my inbox had over 600 emails. It took me 30 minutes of using MoveIT and I had 20 emails in my inbox. That’s incredible!

Here’s a quick calculation: if you get 100 emails a day, and it takes you an average of 20 seconds to file each one, that’s 30 minutes a day you spend on filing. This equals 11 hours a month, or 121 hours a year. That’s 15 work days that you spend on filing emails!!! (here’s the calculation: 20 seconds x 100 emails = 33 minutes x 22 working days a month x 11 months working / 8 working hours a day = over 16 days – you need to divide the result by 60 minutes in an hour)

There are many more advantages to MoveIT. Try it for yourself. You won’t be sorry.
The download is free, and you can use MoveIT for free for 45 days. It only costs US$24.95, and well worth it.

You see, I get over 200 emails a day.

It wasn’t easy trying to handle the vast quantities of emails, during work hours. I still needed to run my department, manage the people, talk to clients, and trying to fit it all into 8/10/12 hours a day was becoming impossible.I have spoken to many people, some with as little as 20 emails a day who reported exactly the same symptoms.

We can’t manage our email overload, and the consequences are “killing” us. No family life, no outings, and it seemed like everything just revolved around email, email and more email.

I have tried many programs, implemented many system, and nothing worked. I seem to have spent my time reading the same email more then twice, trying to file the emails in the correct folders, leaving them in the inbox, deleting them, tried to use outlook rules and alerts, went to productivity seminars, and although the situation seems to have improved a bit, I was still spending a lot of my own, personal time on this information explosion. However, I did gain a lot of experience in the process and have spoken to hundreds of office workers and executives about the email overload problem.

I then sat and tried to analyzed the reasons that lead us to spending so much time.

There had to be a solution. A simple solution to email overload. It just didn’t make sense that nothing was available. In analyzing where I, and other email users, have gone wrong, we discovered some interesting facts:

1. People who leave their read/handled emails in the inbox, waste considerable amount of time, and “lose” a lot of emails.
2. People who file their emails in folders, were able to slightly increase productivity, but a proper system was lacking.
3. Outlook rules & alerts caused more problems then solutions.
4. When a users inbox was empty (or had very little emails), they seemed to be able to better handle their work overload.

Read about the solution to all these problems in my post about MoveIT or go straight to the email overload website.