Personal organization system

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HavocXphere

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After some self-reflection I've realised that while I'm generally pretty good at my actual job if not above avg...organization system is where it all falls apart.

i.e. lots of emails, miss one, get a chaser saying "deadline is in two hours when can I expect this". Stuff like that...not hard in terms of delivering but just me not being on top of things volume and organisation & obviously looks bad.

Person one level up from me gets 100s of mails a day so I feel this is kinda a skill I need to master for next step up.

Anybody have any good tips/systems? (Kinda bluring the lines between mails & to-do but I'm asking about overall workflow basically)
 
I filter emails to me to one folder, cc’s to another folder, and if it’s not in those, I look for from messages from my manager (in general, your management chain), to mail groups I belong to.

At a higher level, I also try control the type of interactions I have: I delegate when appropriate. I ignore outright if it’s nonsense.
 
Gmail.
Labels, filters. External accounts added to it or mail forwarders to specific accounts.

I used Outlook for years professionally.
I transitioned to 'Gmail only' a few years ago and haven't looked back.
 
A good old A4 diary with a quality pen.
Nothing is more satisfying than physically scratching off an item in a list.
 
If your organisation is using Outlook it makes life a hell lot easier with the Business Apps.

In Outlook you have 5 folders.

Inbox

In Progress
Follow Up
To-Do
Completed

Inbox email either get archived if no response is needed. Flagged and moved to in progress of you going to attend to it.

Follow Up if you need to follow up at later date and flag it with a date.

To-Do, you still need to attend to it but not in progress yet.

Completed. Flagged as done and moved to completed.

Do it first thing in the mornings.
Just before lunch.
And maybe later afternoon.

You want to leave the day with an empty inbox.


Then there is still the other MS applications that also integrates with Outlook and Teams:
Planner & Lists (to create tasks).
Tasks can also be created from Emails.

Using Outlooks you can create Rules that will automatically handle and label emails as they come in and set to the criteria you want.
There is also Quick Steps.

Then there is Flow/Power Automate.
 
|tera| said:
Gmail.
Labels, filters. External accounts added to it or mail forwarders to specific accounts.

I used Outlook for years professionally.
I transitioned to 'Gmail only' a few years ago and haven't looked back.
Click to expand...
I used Gmail for years.

Transitioned to MS Business Apps and never looked back. :ROFL:

Loved how Gmail handled labels though.
 
RedViking said:
If your organisation is using Outlook it makes life a hell lot easier with the Business Apps.

In Outlook you have 5 folders.

Inbox

In Progress
Follow Up
To-Do
Completed

Inbox email either get archived if no response is needed. Flagged and moved to in progress of you going to attend to it.

Follow Up if you need to follow up at later date and flag it with a date.

To-Do, you still need to attend to it but not in progress yet.

Completed. Flagged as done and moved to completed.

Do it first thing in the mornings.
Just before lunch.
And maybe later afternoon.

You want to leave the day with an empty inbox.


Then there is still the other MS applications that also integrates with Outlook and Teams:
Planner & Lists (to create tasks).
Tasks can also be created from Emails.

Using Outlooks you can create Rules that will automatically handle and label emails as they come in and set to the criteria you want.
There is also Quick Steps.

Then there is Flow/Power Automate.
Click to expand...
Good advice if that's what anyone chooses to do.
I did the same when I used Outlook.

Things changed, tech changed. I went through the motions and decided on the switch to Gmail only.

App on phone and Tablet works way better than Outlook mobile. Given I'm on Android with a low end phone.

My business/important mail is automatically sorted to my labels.
I appreciate the Gmail Tabs. Shows which mail and promotional mail I need to give attention to.

I've disabled any incoming mail notifications and sounds though.
I'm not a chatter. I chat here. The sound of an incoming message irks me :p
I find myself checking mail throughout the day. Thinking better about what I need to do and accomplish.

I manage a few sites/services. So the incoming mail is extensive. I wouldn't feel in control with Outlook as I do now.

I'm a neat PC user.
Stardock Fences on my PCs. OneDrive for backups of the most important. Helps with working between laptop and Desktop too. I also use Google Drive, but not for syncing data. Just file sharing when needed.

And. My password manager. Can't live without it.
 
RedViking said:
If your organisation is using Outlook it makes life a hell lot easier with the Business Apps.

In Outlook you have 5 folders.

Inbox

In Progress
Follow Up
To-Do
Completed

Inbox email either get archived if no response is needed. Flagged and moved to in progress of you going to attend to it.

Follow Up if you need to follow up at later date and flag it with a date.

To-Do, you still need to attend to it but not in progress yet.

Completed. Flagged as done and moved to completed.

Do it first thing in the mornings.
Just before lunch.
And maybe later afternoon.

You want to leave the day with an empty inbox.


Then there is still the other MS applications that also integrates with Outlook and Teams:
Planner & Lists (to create tasks).
Tasks can also be created from Emails.

Using Outlooks you can create Rules that will automatically handle and label emails as they come in and set to the criteria you want.
There is also Quick Steps.

Then there is Flow/Power Automate.
Click to expand...

I like the approach to organising Outlook. Might give this a go. I do use quick steps to create tasks from emails.

Planner is great but my boss prefers Smartsheet (Teams/Sharepoint Lists would do the same thing although I admit that Smartsheet is slightly more user friendly.)
 
RedViking said:
Something I have used for years as well is a personal knowledge base.

Notion.so works flippen great for this. Such a powerful tool.
Click to expand...
Not a bad idea. I'm thinking the Wiki Tab in Teams Channels could work for this.
 
cguy said:
I filter emails to me to one folder, cc’s to another folder, and if it’s not in those, I look for from messages from my manager (in general, your management chain), to mail groups I belong to.

At a higher level, I also try control the type of interactions I have: I delegate when appropriate. I ignore outright if it’s nonsense.
Click to expand...
I do the same.also create folder for emails related to current projects etc.

You can also create meetings to set aside time to deal with particular emails that need some work before responses.
 
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