This is another one I have picked up from my boss, who has a detailed and highly useful filing system for his emails. I took the skelton structure of the logic behind his system and adapted it to make it work for me. I get between 20-40 personal emails per day and honestly, if they’re all sitting in my main inbox, I can’t find anything easily. So I have separate folders for storing all the emails I want to keep. This sort of system is intuitive for a lot of people, but I know there are still some out there who aren’t sure about how to develop a system that works well for them, so I’m sharing what has worked for me, just in case it helps you.
I began setting up the system by working out the different activities I’m involved with in my mind – I tend to think about things I’m doing as separate tasks or projects, so that is how my email folder system is constructed. I also looked at the emails I had already in my inbox to see what sort of categories would suit them. At the moment, I have the following email folders in my personal email account (in addition to the usual ones):
- Berowra Management (for club management / committee issues at Berowra Toastmasters that I’m involved with)
- Berowra Membership (for membership related information at Berowra Toastmasters)
- Berowra Website (I registered the web domain for Berowra and helped set up the FreeToastHost site, so my emails related to the website are stored here)
- Contacts (for any Toastmasters related contacts I make – these are generally people I am not in regular contact with, but may want to get in touch with at some future date)
- Contests (any information relating to any contests I’ve been involved with)
- Area Governor (any information related to things done by other Area Governors I like, ideas I have for my upcoming term in that role and any resources related to the position)
- Elouera (I’m not as heavily involved with Elouera Toastmasters, so I don’t have the volumes of communications necessary to create more than one folder)
- Events (Any info about event management, events I’ve been involved in, even down to things like flyers I like for other events I’ve seen)
- Guest Speakers (Any info about Guest Speakers I am interested in securing, or have secured in the past)
- High Performance Leadership (Anything related to my upcoming HPL project)
- Hornsby Committee (Anything related to committee business at Hornsby Toastmasters Club)
- Hornsby Mentoring (Anything relating to the existing mentoring arrangements at Hornsby Club, as well as info and resources I am pulling together to help the club create a mentoring guide)
- Hornsby Past Members (As VPM at Hornsby, I like to keep track of communications with members who have left the club)
- Hornsby Personal (Anything related to assignments I am completing in the club)
- Hornsby VPM (All main emails from my time as VPM @ Hornsby)
- Hornsby Website (Any bits and pieces related to our website)
- Long Term Goals (Lists of my long term goals, with updates every 3-6 months – this keeps them at the forefront of my mind)
- Meetings (Any general meeting info for any of my clubs, including agendas and upcoming meeting details)
- Proofreading Assignments (I’ve been assisting with some of the documents produced in Toastmasters in District 70 and I keep copies of all of them to refer back to if I need to)
- Resources (Any general resources I want to keep in my email account, including links to websites and useful online info)
- Seminars (Any info relating to any of the seminars and workshops I am involved in – this folder will probably be split soon)
- Speech Ideas (This is a story file and ideas file for my own personal use)
- Speechcraft (Anything relating to Speechcraft programs I run or am involved with)
- Stage Time! (Anything relating to the new advanced club I’ve joined)
- TenaciousToastie Blog (Any administration related to this blog, as well as ideas for future posts)
- The Beyond Series (Anything related to the series of educational guides I am in the process of creating)
- Toastmasters Projects General (Any Toastmasters projects I get involved in that don’t fit into any other categories, but won’t generate enough correspondence to warrant their own folder)
- World Champions Edge (Anything related to my Edge membership)
- Youth Leadership (Any emails related to Youth Leadership courses I am involved with)
For me, a lot of folders with information for different tasks works well. It may not work for you and that’s fine - I still recommend some sort of folder filing system though. It is significantly easier to find emails quickly when they are categorised and has saved me loads of time. Over time, I have added more folders as I take on new projects and archived folders I’m not using. It takes me between 5-15mins per day to file emails, but saves me about double that time per day by my non-scientific estimations.
