#Organise outlook folders how to#

#Organise outlook folders how to#

I often get asked how to go about this, so here is the process I used:Īt the start, my Administration folder looked something like the below. Once you have decided what your new email folders will look like, you will want to move your old emails into the new system and delete your now empty folders. The amount of time I spent filing emails dropped enormously while, strangely, it did not seem to take me any longer to find emails. After repeating the process for my other main folders, my new system looked something like this: All emails relating to customers went into that folder. My tidying up involved replacing all those Outlook email folders with a single ‘Customer’ folder. And even if I did not misfile it, often my emails folders were so complex that emails could sometimes rightly be filed in any one of several email folders. It was too easy to misfile an email, especially when I rushed. I realised that even if I got it right I could not always find an email I was looking for anyway. Oddly enough, though I was aware it was taking me time to file away emails, I figured that this was the price to pay for keeping my emails organised.Īn awareness slowly dawned on me though. I lost count of how many folders and subfolders I had. Having been in business for some time by this stage, I had more than 70 customers. My email folder structure looked something like this: I then had sub-subfolders for some of my regular customers with whom I might have been working on various projects. In other words, ban the subfolder and the sub-subfolder, etc.Ī while ago, before I took my own advice on this matter, I had an email folder for each of my customers, with those folders all stored under a main ‘Customer’ email folder. This might require an investment of time – you may need to sit down and map out a new folder structure first – but it will be worthwhile. This is the first step towards reducing the number of choices you have to make in order to file an email. I have a few suggestions for organising and simplifying your Outlook email folders which I promise, will save you valuable time.įirstly, try to reduce the number of folders you have. The problem gets worse with greater complexity, as each email could potentially be filed in numerous different folders, such as when it relates to more than one project or perhaps several administration matters. This is Hick’s law playing out, with the effect that it takes a lot more time to manage your inbox. What does this have to do with email folders you may ask? Well, as the structure of your email folders becomes more complicated, it takes longer each time to decide where to file any particular email.

I recall thinking that it was all a little too hard, in the end choosing the meal that my friend had decided to have … before he changed his mind again! The waitress came to take our order a number of times, with us asking her to give us a few more minutes on each occasion before we were finally ready. Most of us changed our minds at least three times. We all began flicking through this tome trying to decide what to have.

There must have been about 20 pages of food options. When the waitress brought us the menu, it was more like a book. My wife and I went out for a meal to an Italian pizza and pasta restaurant with another couple. Recently, I saw this very thing play out in a restaurant. Hick’s law basically says that the more choices you have, the longer you will take to make a decision. Hick’s law – sometimes also known as the Hick-Hyman law – was named after the British and American psychologists William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman. The truth is that a complex filing system like this can be as unproductive as no system at all. Quite often a system becomes so complex that its owner ends up creating duplicate folders by mistake. I often see ‘systems’ involving numerous folders under the inbox in which there are then subfolders and sometimes even sub-subfolders. Something I’ve noticed in working with people to improve their productivity is that quite often their Outlook email folders are far too complicated. (If this isn’t you, and instead you have thousands – even tens of thousands – of emails clogging up your inbox, then perhaps you should start with my previous post about creating a clean and stress-free inbox.) That is, we take some time – at least occasionally – to file emails that have been read and dealt with into an email folder somewhere under our inbox. Productivity Training for Executive Assistants & DirectorsĪlmost every one of us uses Outlook email folders.