Do you ever think back to those pre-COVID days and laugh at how you used to think that you got a ton of emails then? Me too. Between the meetings scheduled, vague requests from students, and an explanation of yet another change, the barrage of emails is now constant. If you’ve been wondering how you could possibly organize email, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered!
Best way to Organize Email Inbox
Let’s start with my favorite thing. Purging. Purge that email inbox. Any email you don’t need to keep, delete! Some people like to practice a zero inbox, meaning they end each day by clearing out all of the emails in their inbox. Either by deleting email messages or moving them into a folder. You could absolutely do that.
But, I have a different preference. I use a modified zero inbox method. I only keep the important emails that I need to act upon. Any emails detailing a task to get done or a special event I keep in my inbox until the task is complete and the event is over. If I didn’t keep them in my inbox, I’d have to save them in a folder. And for me, if they are out of sight, they are also out of mind.
How to Organize Email Folders
What about the emails you want (or need) to keep? Those emails can be saved in folders. Believe it or not, I actually save a lot of emails. Every contact with a parent or a student is saved, just in case. Anything that I may want to reference in the future is also saved, just in case.
This part depends on your email provider, but most of them give you the option to use folders. So for everything you want to keep, create a folder for it. Think of folders as categories. Each folder holds a certain category of email.
When it comes to creating folders, you want to give each folder an obvious name so you don’t have to wonder what it contains. Or where you can find a particular email later.
Folder Examples
For example, when I save emails from students, they go into my “Student Communication” folder. When I save emails from my district, it depends on the contents of the email. I have a “BTS” folder for any back to school related information, and a “Math Department” folder for information regarding the math department.
How to Organize Gmail
Gmail is a little different, and they use labels instead of folders. So if you’re a Gmail user, anywhere that I said “folder” in the previous section, replace it with “label.” Now in Gmail, when you label an email, it will sit in your inbox. You also have to archive those emails.
Labels have additional features that traditional email folders don’t. Labels can be “nested,” meaning one label is categorized under another. Kind of like having sub-folders. Also, you can add more than one label to an email. You can even color code labels.
Organize Your Email Inbox
Now that you’ve organized your inbox, you need a system to keep it organized. A system is a planned procedure you repeat to maintain your organization. Will you clean out your inbox at the end of every day? At the end of every week? Do what works best for you.
Personally, I prefer to empty my inbox weekly (except for the emails I need to act on), and I delete really old emails annually. Part of my system is to delete any emails from over 3 years ago at the end of the school year. (Like I said, I actually do save a lot of my emails.)
Do you need help creating a system that works for you? Be sure to jump on the Productive Teacher Toolkit waitlist! Enrollment will be opening soon, and you don’t want to miss all the system creating goodness waiting inside for you.
Want to know more about my system for cleaning out my inbox? Check out the YouTube video that goes along with this blog post!
