You have a full-featured Messaging system, you’re beginning to understand the importance of Workflow, it took a little time but you Processed all your mail and you’ve successfully set up some Filters, wow! All that work. Now, it’s time for it to pay off. The next few times you login to your email I hope it’s a breath of fresh air. No long list of emails hanging around your inbox, all filtered messages are in their correct place and you only have a few simple messages to deal with instead of twenty or thirty! Let’s keep this going by continuing to Update as we need.
Are you switching jobs or positions? Subscribing to a new Newsletter or two? Found a new long lost cousin who constantly sends photos of relatives you’ve yet to meet? If any or all of these are true, Updating your email system can help keep bad habits from coming back and putting a wrench in your new and glorious widget. Add a folder if anything seems to be a bottleneck, but keep in mind that we want as few folders as we can get away with and no less (too few and we mix items into folders they don’t belong and too many kills the idea of a folder system because it gets too complicated). Create another Filter for your new Newsletters and messages from your long lost cousin. And most of all keep using the two minute, 1 step rule; take no more than 2 minutes to process each new message and if it takes more than 1 step to process, make a project out of it, move it to your calendar or defer it to someone who is better matched to get it done!
Keep things Updated and you’ll never go back to a cluttered and unorganized email system again!!
