Email folders and labels for ideas

Right brainers have some different organizing needs that are often overlooked in the run-of-the-mill organizing books and articles. That's because many of them are written by lefties who don't feel compelled to save every idea for when they're ready to act on it.
And email and the internet are full of great idea triggers!!!

If you're an idea saver, how can you work with your need/desire to save?

1. Save based on what kind of idea it is
Make files or labels based on what you will most likely use the idea for.
For instance:

• Book ideas

• Article ideas

• Painting ideas

• Coaching ideas

• Decor ideas

You get the gist. Then when you get an email you want to save, it has a place to go and sit until you're ready.

2. Save the ideas based on how soon you want to get to it. In this case you can make a limited number of files:

• Act now (this week)
  
• Soon (this month)
  
• This year
• Someday (these are just to have but don't have any urgency)

3. If you just don't like to file or tag much, dump all ideas into one big file called ideas and use your computer's search function.

Do you have another method that's working for you?

Email Organizing with folders

Can Righties organize email with folders? Why yes we can.
The trick to using the folder approach is to make the folder titles mean something.
There are 3 kinds of folders
1. Action - emails you drop here are still in the cooker. Some on low heat, some on high. Each still needs some kind of attention.
Action items can be broken down into sub folders such as:
To pay
To read /sites to go to
To reply
To research
Pending orders
To Call
To Go (classes, parties, meetings)

2. Reference - keep info for future reference
This is where labeling of folders gets a little complicated.
a. The folder names work best if they match the names of any real physical files in your file drawers
b. The titles have to be broad enough categories so that you don't create zillions of files.
c. The titles have to be obvious to you

Some example reference file folders
Work
Personal
Kids stuff
Clubs
Recipes
Humor/inspiration
Account /password info
Stuff from Mom (that's real for me)

Business files:
Client correspondence
Website information
Writing ideas
Marketing ideas
Memos from boss/workplace/HR

3. Project files
These are for information to be collected for a short time, then discarded (including deleting the folder icon)
RSVPs for event
Decor project bids

The second trick is to use your in-box as your to-do list.
I know this is a huge no-no, taboo, frowned-upon way to operate - but for some of us it just works better. The reason is because if you're already looking at mail in the in-box, your brain is triggered to attend to the stuff that is still sitting there.
It works great with a running list of urgent to-dos and non-urgent to-dos.
You can mark the urgents with flags or by color marking them if your email system allows it.

Next - how to get less email and be a better emailer friend.

Right Brain Email Organizing

Email has become a huge big monster to organize over the last several years.
Remember the early days when we just got a few emails a day?
There are so many ways to organize email I'll try to comment on a few over the next few entries.
For me - I have been using folders since I got my first email using outlook express back in the 1990's.
Now I use applemail and still use folders.
But I wish I had switched to gmail years ago - and I'll tell you why.
It is made for Righties!
The system uses labels instead of folders - which allows you to SEE the subject and the label(s) at the same time.
Labeling means SEEing!
Lets look at the usual ways people deal with email:

Filers - this is how it all began - and why it's so hard to turn the corner. We would (and many still do) create folder upon folder within folder to house our email archives so that we may find them again if needed. Some people have more than 100 folders and that doesn't make it easy to find what you need after a while.

Searchers - Hate to put things in a folder, so they leave everything in their In-box, Deleted folder, or Sent mail folder. When they want to find older emails, they just search for it. They love the apple Spotlight function because it can find just about anything using keywords. They use the in-box to house just about everything.

Taggers/Labelers - these are the wise ones who have adopted the tagging system that google created with gmail. It took me days to figure out I was never going to find a way to make a folder in the gmail program.
Instead, you put a label on each email with key phrases you would use for it. Each can have more than one tag as well. Labels can be action - Do, Read, Pending. And they can also be about the sender or the information - Work, Mom, friends.
Labels allow us to SEE everything we need to SEE while simultaneously showing us the label we gave it.
So if you're thinking about finding another way to organize your email, consider the gmail approach.


Read some other great blog entries about how to use gmail
James Melzer's Blog entry on google and outlook - includes a photo of tagging done right.
4 steps to banish email from Think Simple Now blog