When my desktop hard drive died, I had to reinstall from my backup. I did not, however, transfer my inbox. I left it on my laptop, instead deciding to start from scratch and see how I could do. That doesn’t mean I gave up on my other email. I just wanted to see if I could keep my inbox as small as possible.
It worked for a while. But work, life, family and oh, I don’t know, sleep, got in the way. And sadly, I’m back up to around 300 emails in there. Many of them are just email alerts that …read more

During my trip to the library, I picked up another Julie Morgenstern book. This time it’s Never Check E-Mail in the Morning.
I haven’t started the book yet. I’m hoping to find some interesting information in there. But I have to wonder about her title.
Is it feasible to skip checking email in the morning? I check mine to get my daily schedule and see what I need to work on that day.
However, I could see putting off email until you’ve had a chance to sit down and review your to-do list and see where you stand. Get some good, solid planning …read more

I was reading a post over at Web Worker Daily about email. In it, they discuss two types of email users – filers and finders.
The filers use lots of folders to categorize and file away their email. I can remember doing this in Outlook. You see, Outlook’s search function is terrible. So I would file by project or department or whatever seemed appropriate at the time.
Unfortunately, when it came to finding those emails, it wasn’t always easy to remember where I filed it. Was it by project A? Or department B? Or did I put it in the folder where …read more

(www.myorganizedbiz.com) – If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the volume of email you receive, it’s possible you need to make more frequent use of your delete key. Even with impossible amounts of storage available, you still need to hit delete every so often. In fact, the more frequently you use it, the better.
Here’s what happens when you keep every email that comes at you: you can’t find anything. Remember that email you sent to that client about the thing they wanted you to do next month? Well, would it be easier to pinpoint in 20 emails or 20,000? I thought …read more

(www.myorganizedbiz.com) Clutter can come in many forms. Too many emails. Too many projects. Too much stuff. In a society that encourages consumption over production, it’s easy to collect too much of everything.
Overloading ourselves
We feel that information gives us power, so we subscribe to hundreds off RSS feeds. We have to keep up on the industry, our competition, trends, cool stuff, and our guilty pleasures. We read every email that comes through our inbox, even though we really don’t need to. We take on bunches of projects because we’re afraid to say no, and then panic because we have so much …read more

(www.myorganizedbiz.com) – Since e-mail is such a big part of our businesses, we’ll be featuring ways you can keep your inbox under control. If you can’t put your finger on an important e-mail, or you spend more than 5 minutes looking for it, you may need to prune your messages.
One thing that has helped me quite a bit is giving myself permission to delete e-mails. Yes, deleting. You see, with so much storage available to us, it’s easy to keep everything “just in case.”
The question to ask yourself is whether you’ll really need that e-mail later. Of course, contracts, agreements, …read more

(www.myorganizedbiz.com) – There’s some great writing going on around the b5 Business Channel I though you should know about, so here’s my roundup for the week…
At Yielding Wealth, Miranda’s got a fun video feature that captures my heart – and the essence of my own financial values.
Miranda also wrote a post called Me and My Cash Flow Problem – where she discusses a financial mistake she made and shares a lesson we can all learn from.
On TaxGirl, Kelly gives us the DL on health insurance premiums and how to deduct them. This is an oft-overlooked writeoff so check it …read more

(www.myorganizedbiz.com) – Have you found yourself grousing about email lately? It seems like everyone I talk to is overwhelmed with the volume and incessant nature of it.
If you’re bending under the load, beware of the lurking kind of email that you get and don’t even know it. It’s the kind of message that stays in your Inbox for weeks on end. You might have a star by it. And it. won’t. go. away.
Today’s tip of the week: Look out for “assignment emails.”
This type of message requires more than just a simple reply. Instead, you get an email that …read more