5 Rules for Setting up an email filing system

Over the past ten years or so ( as of this posting) I have been fortunate only to change jobs twice. This means that I’ve really only had to set up two e-mail filing systems in that time. Setting up a filing system when you don’t know what you’re doing can be difficult, but luckily it’s not impossible. There are a few things that you can do which will make it so that, given a bit of time, when you are getting to the point that you have over 50 emails a day, you can look at them instantly and know precisely where they have to go. I should also specify that some of the suggestions that I’m going to go through can be used for either, or both to be honest.

1) Start wide, and narrow – When I’m setting up folders I like to start with a wider range of subjects. A “Wide” range are general subjects can be more general things that you can have subfolders that you will later be able to focus on should you need to. In your personal life, a wide subject could be things like “Bills” where later you will be able to subdivide by “phone bills” or “Electricity bills” when you get more e-mails of a more specific subject. In a professional capacity, you may want to keep e-mails from the people in your company. The wide range would be setting up a folder for each division in your company (Accounting, operations, legal) and then adding subfolders with the person’s names. Starting wide is easy because you can always subdivide if you need to.

2) Separate by subject – I have found that I get involved in certain things and I want to keep all the emails from that specific thing in one spot. In my personal life It could be a trip I’d like to take or an event I’m planning, and I love knowing that if I have to reference something from that specific event, I can always find the e-mails I always know I can see them. I do the same thing in my professional life. I have projects that I work on with multiple people that requires me to keep a record of conversations I’ve had through email. Keeping them all in one folder makes it so much easier to be able to track where I am in the project (and what I need to get done)

3) Separate personal and professional – I’ve talked about separating personal and professional (Hyperlink to article) before, and it’s something I really believe in. I usually get quite nervous for people when they use their professional e-mails for personal purposes or vice versa. I can understand if you’re company’s policy is not to issue e-mails and that is your only way of communicating with your boss, but if you can separate personal and professional, you should. If you start using your professional e-mail in personal circumstances and then have to switch jobs, one assumes that you will have to switch e-mails as well. This means you’ll have to spend a day or so informing all your friends that you’ve changed jobs and here is your new e-mail. I find it far easier just to have a personal and professional e-mail. Yes, this means you need to maintain two email addresses, but it makes it easier to draw the lines between your personal and professional life. In full admission, it gets a little tricky for me as I WORK for my family, but I do my best to keep personal things personal, and professional things professional.

4) File regularly, file often – as indicated in my last post (hyperlink) it’s essential to maintain the sanctity of your inbox. Too much clutter in your mailbox will make it so that you won’t be able to see the forest from the trees. In a personal setting, I use my inbox to keep any e-mails that are current issues — conversations that are ongoing, bills or receipts that I haven’t gotten to yet. As soon as the discussion is over, or the bill is paid, that all get filed away. In a professional setting what I do is keep all of the “open issues” in my inbox for easy reference. Most of my open issues do not last longer than a week or so, so they aren’t in my inbox that long. Again, once the matter is closed, I go through and file them all away.

5) Change if you need to – No system is set in stone. It’s important to remember that. Just because you set up a foldering system one way doesn’t mean that you have to keep it that way forever. I have had a few different set up that I have that eventually didn’t work, and I had to re-arrange my files to make it work right. I have my bills all set up with subfolders for each vendor. I have moved around a bit in the past 15 years, so my vendors have changed, I have had to “archive” some and create new folders for the new ones. Changes happen, and that is fine. In my professional life, I have had people who work in the same office as me who work in one division who then went to work for another division. As I keep people’s e-mails in their own folders by division, I have had to move some people around. I also have an archive folder for people who have left the company. I keep those e-mails (for a certain period of time) in case I need to reference them for any future projects. I have not deleted any archived people’s emails as of this posting, but who knows, that might change.

One of the things that you need to remember while you’re setting up your filing system is that because it is your system, you are capable of doing whatever you like. The absolute easiest system that you can make for yourself is one that you can navigate yourself. If the tips that I have outlined help then that’s great, but these are suggestions, not rules set in stone.

Have you set up your e-mail filing system?

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