Get your e-mail inbox organized

Eliminate inbox clutter with these simple tips

By Deena Waisberg

Toronto resident Yvonne von Jena receives about 60 e-mails a day and says she must check her e-mail daily to keep on top of it. "When I take a few days off, it can get overwhelming," she admits.

Von Jena is not alone. The average person receives about 30 legitimate e-mails a day at work, five to 10 e-mails at home and 10 spam messages a day, according to London- and San Francisco-based Ferris Research.

To make her life easier, von Jena takes advantage of the various e-mail management features within Outlook. This spring, when you're creating that annual spring cleaning to-do list, add your e-mail inbox to the schedule. Microsoft Home Magazine shows you how you can use Outlook 2007 to help organize and sort your e-mail. If you don't have Outlook, no worries. Many of these functions can be adapted to any e-mail client.

• Get rid of junk
• Create personal folders
• Filter to personal folders
• Flag messages
• Set up group contacts
• Delete e-mail
• Archive messages

Get rid of junk mail

Outlook 2007 includes a junk e-mail filter that identifies and filters spam. You can also add an annoying sender that slips through to the block sender list by clicking on Actions > Junk E-mail > Add Sender to Blocked Senders List. Conversely, if the program blocks an e-mail that isn’t junk, add that sender to the safe list by clicking Actions > Junk E-mail > Add Recipient to the Safe Recipients List.

Create personal folders

You’ll want to save some of the e-mails you receive. Consider creating personal folders to store and organize them. Name the folders for easy reference. Von Jena, for example, has created folders entitled Apartment, Travel, Jokes and Friends.

To create a personal folder:

1. Go to File > Folder > New Folder. This brings up a Create a New Folder dialogue box.
2. Name the folder, choose what it will contain (mail) and select where to place the folder.

Filter to personal folders

You can also filter or send mail directly to personal folders. By creating a rule, for example, all of your sister Susan’s mail will go into the “Susan” folder.

To create a filter rule:

1. Highlight the message you want to base the rule on.
2. Under Tools > Rules and Alerts (this brings up a Rules and Alerts dialogue box), click New Rule and select the conditions and actions you want to apply. For example, Move message from someone to a folder. Edit the rule description (meaning choose the person you want the rule to apply to and the folder).
3. Click Finish.

Each person’s mail is filtered into his or her own folder and family members can agree to read only the mail in their folder.

An alternative to filtering your family’s e-mails is to create a profile or user account for each person in Outlook.

To add a new profile:

1. Go to Tools > Account settings > From the E-mail tab, click New.
2. A wizard appears. Enter name, e-mail address and password. Click Next.
3. The wizard will attempt to connect to the server and verify the information you’ve entered. If it is unable to, check the box to manually configure your server settings.

To switch between profiles, click Start > Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles > Prompt for a profile to be used > Apply. When you launch Outlook 2007, a dialogue box will appear, asking you to select the profile you want. Select one to log in.

Flag messages

To help remind you that further action is required regarding a particular e-mail, flag or mark it. Highlight the message > right-click > select Follow Up > Choose a flag to indicate priority level A dark red flag indicates that a task needs to be done ASAP, a red flag indicates tomorrow, and a faded flag indicates later in the week or next week. You can also flag an e-mail simply by clicking on the flag outline to the right of the message. Clicking on the square next to it lets you categorize an e-mail by colour. The message is then copied to the To-Do Bar. It’s handy to use the different colours to indicate importance. For example, red may signify an urgent message.

Set up group contacts

In the address book, you can organize and view contacts in a category, such as soccer friends.

To create a group contact or distribution list:

1. File > New > Distribution List.
2. Name the group and select the members from your contact list > Save and Close.

The distribution list will appear as a contact. This means you can send an e-mail to the whole group with just one click — a great time-saver.

Delete e-mail

Should you delete your e-mail once you read it? “Managing your e-mail when you first read it will help you reduce e-mail clutter,” says Trent Rix, program coordinator, computer and information technology training at Red Deer College in Alberta. “It is best to read, respond, tag for follow-up or delete e-mail. In short, don’t keep e-mail for the sake of keeping it.”

Von Jena saves critical work correspondence in personal folders and purges non-essential correspondence (like e-mails to schedule a meeting) once a day. Remember to delete the Sent Items and the Deleted Items folder.

Archive messages

At some point, you’ll have too many messages in your personal folders, so you’ll want to archive.

To archive messages in a personal folder to a CD:

• Minimize the e-mail screen.
• Right-click the personal folder and drag it over to your desktop. Release the mouse button and select Move Here.
• Open the CD-burning software and burn the personal folder. All the messages in the folder will be copied to CD.
• Delete the personal folder from your desktop.
• Create a new personal folder in your e-mail.

Now you have a clean inbox. And for von Jena, that means “you get peace of mind.”