Kat doodles about life:
It’s Sunday! Having a bit of fun this weekend although still working both nights as usual, I decided to have a little session and just go through my e-mails. As soon as I comment in a thread on Facebook, in a group with high volume of activity, my account gets very quickly overloaded with not always wanted e-mail notifications. You may say there is no need to have them sent, but I do like to stay updated with the news or messages my friends send me. I cannot always log in to Facebook or do not have time to look at each notification. Like this in few second I have all updates in one app, especially when using phone out and about.
So today I thought I will share with you how I organize my e-mail account. Over the last fifteen years this is my third e-mail account since I started with a nickname at the age of thirteen, then in the last year of university I went for my full name, however having one very difficult to spell proved impossible to use it with larger communities or telling people on the phone. So about a year ago I think, perhaps even earlier I went for the world wide known Gmail. I am pretty happy, do not really have a problem, spam is limited to pretty much to minimum, which I could not say about my previous provider. Now using Android type of phone and syncing all my social media and contacts via my Gmail account makes my communication experience fairly simple.
Over the years I got involved in lot of projects, went to many schools and travelled to many countries. Keeping all the e-mails coming from all around the world organized became a bit difficult, so I have come up with a little system. First all my labels just would have names related to what it is. As the numbers grew, I found it difficult to keep it clear, so I decided to call it by groups and then adding relevant name of a project. There was a point, when my account got overloaded with too many e-mails again, so I had to go and clear them at least from Inbox. Some of them did not get to be read. So I decided to put symbol @ in front of every folders I have personally gone through and deleted all non relevant emails. The ones I liked or wanted to read are marked by yellow stars at the front. Like this I could quickly recognize the ones to keep from the already read, but having to go through.
Recently I found some time to go through my account again and realized there are too many folders and it is a bit of a mess. I have unsubscribed from unwanted newsletters or advertising campaigns. And since I was using symbol @ to make clear differentiation, I used @@ to mark my recent tidy up.
Simply shown my account with folders looks something like this:
@Art
@Art Abigail Ahern Blog
@Art Farrow & Ball
@BBC Jobs
@BBC Good Food
@Family Mum
@Family Sister
@Family Others
@Food Food Recipes
@Food Foodpaedia
@Friends Netherlands
@Friends Spain
@Friends Prague
@Friends Helena T.
@Friends Will H,
@Friends Thom P.
@Jobs Jobsite
@Jobs Project Sky
@Jobs Theatre
@Jobs Interior Design
@Jobs General
@Language Agency Apr2011-Apr2012
@Language Agency Apr2013-Apr2014
@Other Flights
@Others Freebies
@Other Bank
@Other All Sorts
@School Foundation
@School Uni class
@School Uni graduates
@Social WordPress
@Social Facebook Page
@Theatre PQ
@Theatre SBTD
@Theatre CZ
@Theatre UK
….
Obviously in Gmail it is all shown alphabetically and some of these examples are changed for privacy reasons. The main thing is it really help clearing the inbox quicker or if you are looking for particular e-mail for example regarding a job you did. I found useful doing special dividing with companies I work for by tax years. With people, who are your friends and have the same interests I divide them according to either the country they come from or put them into art. Especially if I tend to keep in touch with them mainly by e-mail.
Since doing my proper recent clear out, Gmail is putting folders @@to the top. It may become little painful soon as I have many folders, but I do not mind at this point. Clear enough to see the difference from just basic folder names.
So hopefully this was little useful to someone , anyone having their own special system? Feel free to share or send an e-mail about it ( katerina.t.designer@gmail.com ).
Good night and see you tomorrow. Kat xx
