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Erin graduated from college in May 2008 and was surprised at the lack of resources for college students about what the transition into the "real world" is really like. In an effort to share her experience as a recent college graduate and create a resource for college students and recent grads, she created College Grad Lessons.

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Archive for the ‘Organization’ Category

Managing My E-mail Inbox

Friday, December 12th, 2008

This morning I realized that I had 757 e-mails in my inbox at work. Not okay.

So I set a goal for myself - never have more than 100 e-mails in my inbox. Eventually I’d like to get that number down more, but I’m going to take it one step at a time.

I went through all of my e-mails and deleted e-mails related to completed projects, as well as newsletters, LISTSERVs and college-wide e-mails. Then I combed through more recent e-mails and got read of anything that I had responded to already and did not contain important information. Finally I managed to get down to 75 e-mails. Not bad!

In order to better manage my e-mail inbox, I plan to:

  1. Save documents I receive to the appropriate project folder on my desktop immediately.
  2. Delete e-mails that I’ve already replied to, especially if I expect a response back. Their reply will contain the chain of e-mails that I have gone back and forth anyways.
  3. Clean up every Friday morning. When my day is busy, I often leave e-mails untouched. I see them and respond if necessary, but leave the e-mail in place to remind me of any action items.

Hopefully next Friday my inbox will be down to 50 e-mails.

Posted in Life, Organization, Time Management, Work | No Comments »