Earlier this week a client email me asking, “Do you have 2 separate email accounts, one for business and one for personal. That’s what I have right now, but I am wondering if I should merge my email into one account, my business account. What do you suggest?”
This was a great question because I know many of you struggle with managing your emails on a day-to-day basis.
And to answer this client’s question, I have many separate email addresses (both for business and personal) but EVERYTHING comes down into my one Gmail account.
Let me share a little more about how I’ve got everything organized and why…
I was actually a die-hard Outlook fan for many years and strongly resisted the temptation to switch to the latest *hot* email system simply because I loved many of the features that Outlook offers, especially the ability to automatically organize emails as they come into your inbox through the use of Rules and Filters.
However, this past year I have traveled an awful lot (both business and personal) and each time I travel I take my laptop with me. Side note: In my office I work off a desktop PC because I prefer that way of working. So, each time I travel I set up an email forward at my server to automatically forward all my emails to my Gmail account so that I can still access emails while I’m traveling.
The downside to this is when I do get back to my office I have to reverse the process and I find that some of the emails I need to reference are actually in my Gmail account … so it takes me a while to get organized again. Not very productive!
So the upshot this past Fall, was that I took the decision to switch permanently over to Gmail … and now I’M LOVIN’ IT!! It did take me a while to get all my filters/labels set up, but once that’s done everything runs so much more smoothly. And I also have complete access to my Gmail and Calendar on my Android phone too!
Your Action Steps for This Week
What’s you current email system set up? Is it efficient and streamlined? Do you use automatic filtering to organize your emails?
Take a look at what you’re currently doing and then click through to any of the articles below to help you create a more streamlined and automated email management system.
And also don’t forget to post your comments and questions below each article … all questions happily answered!
Outlook Users:
Create Rules and Folders for Simple Email Management
Warning! Don’t Let Your Outllook.pst Folder Get Too Large
How To Create An Effective Email Signature
Gmail Users:
Create Filters and Labels for Quick and Easy Email Organization
General Email Management:
What To Do About Managing Your Emails Before Its Too Late
5 Top Tips for Managing Your Emails
And if you’ve found any of these articles and tips helpful, please share with your social networks.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Although I would *love* to merge both personal and work email, for legal reasons, I prefer not to. If something happened (G-d forbid) and I had to give someone access to my business messages, they’d get to see my personal ones too! Or vise versa. It’s like the finances: keep them separate!
The first thing I did was pick a main email address for work and a main email address for my personal stuff. Then I separated all my domains into those two groups, leaving just two accounts to check. I shouldn’t be checking personal email on work time anyway. =)
My filters separate my work messages into both departments (company-wide stuff that I can delegate) and projects (stuff that comes directly to me). My personal filters are set up almost the same, except that I have “hats” instead of departments (house, homeschool, pets). Personal projects are things like self-improvement, continuing education, etc.
The next part of my plan was to use Google Apps for Business to create groups that allow several internal people to reply. Things like support, info and billing would go to those groups and the VAs/employees. They can reply from those accounts so I keep the professionalism of the business domain.
The last step is to purge SPAM, unsubscribe from the “bright shiny objects” and get strict about email checking time. Parkinson’s Law! It’s way too easy to will spend a LOT more time on email than planned! Set a specific time and stick to it. I use a Pomodoro timer extension for Chrome (Chromodoro).
One of the most promising tools I’m trying out to help with my email issue is AwayFind (http://www.awayfind.com).
Hi Penny
Thanks so much for sharing your email system with us here. It seems we all need to create different kinds of filters to automatically sort our emails… where would we be with out them
Tracey
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