Well this is cool … after I did the favorite’s organization challenge, I wasn’t sure how quickly I’d be able to come up with another one … ha, needless to say it didn’t take too long at all

(Just leave it to the queen of un-organization … I’ll come up with all kinds of ideas!)

This morning I stumbled upon an email that I was supposed to have replied to at the beginning of last week – not replied too. A little later this morning I was searching for another email that I just knew I had kept. After searching and searching – wasting entirely too much time … I figured it out.

Time for another quick organization challenge!

As you can tell, this time we’re working on those email accounts. I honestly hope for your sake that yours doesn’t look anything like mine did.

I used to have a little personal ‘un-written’ rule that I never allowed my inbox get any “fuller” than what I could see on the first page. (And this really wasn’t all that long ago …)

That means, by the way I had my settings set, I could only have 50 emails sitting in my in box at a time. And this worked … for really long time. Ugh, not so much the case anymore! Little by little I changed my settings until I reached the maximum amount of emails to show per page – 200! But here’s where it gets scary … I had 238!

Yikes – it was certainly time to do something.

I’m happy to announce that I now have 99 emails showing on my first page of email! (Okay, I’m not really happy or proud to say that but … gee, it sure is better than 238!)

Anyway, that means I took care of 139 emails. (Okay, is that scary or is that sad? I’m thinking I need my VA to do a little more work for me – what do you think?)

So, what did I do?

First I went through every single email and I was happy to find that a few pieces of spam were mixed in there – you know the ones that have a “way past” date. Of course they were easy enough to take care of – it’s called D-E-L-E-T-E

I have a tendency to write emails to myself. Am I the only strange one who does this? ROFL! Seriously, if I want to remember something or check into something later on … I’ll email myself so I don’t forget. I took all these emails, opened up a notepad and started myself a list. That probably took care of about ten or so emails and turned them into just one.

After that I went through all the emails that needed a home. I have another tendency to let emails pile up in my inbox – emails that I do need to keep a hold of but don’t necesssarily need anything done to them right now. So, I created some new folders and sent those emails home. (And by the way … that’s just a new habit I picked up, lol!)

Eventually I had quite a handful emails that just had something that needed to be taken care of. These were things that were not really important so I just left them pile up. I took the time to do what needed done and deleted those too.

(Although, I have to say I did find another email that was supposed to have been taken care of a while ago also. I was so embarrassed to reply to that one – luckily I know she’ll forgive me!)

So after I got all those taken care of I did go one step further and set up a few filters. Hopefully this will help keep my inbox a little more cleaner and my whole email account a little easier to navigate. I can say it looks great!

Now if I could just get back to 50 I’d be in heaven … although something tells me that’s not ever gonna happen again! lol!

Maybe no one else is even going to do this challenge with me … lol … I’m probably the only ones with these odd tendencies and habits. Please leave me a comment and either tell me I’m not alone or … share your strange tendency with me.

Please … I sure could use some re-assurance here!

As I try to get myself a little more organized, I’ll try to post a quick Organization Challenge here that might help you too.

If you’re anything like me – your Favorites Folder is probably an absolute mess!  Think about it – does this sound familiar to you? 

I’ll be busy working on a project, doing some research along the way and I come across another site that looks like something I might be interested in.  If I stop right there and start looking around the site, checking out the “cool new tool” or what have you … what happens? 

I get totally side-tracked and my project gets tossed to the wayside (resulting in getting nothing accomplished).  Oh and let’s not forget the other new site you just found on this site too. 

Let’s face it … the internet is a wonderful resource just packed full of site after site, resource after resource, tool after tool … yeah, you get the idea I’m sure.  I know I’m preaching to the choir here.

So, what solution had I come up with?  Let’s just toss it in my favorites so I can come back later!  I do try really hard to NOT be one of those people who toss it in my favorites only to never return.  There was some reason I put it there in the first place.  I try really hard to stop back later – when I have time.  (Oh did you see that?  I just made a funny!)

So this morning, I’m looking for something specific in my favorites and oh my gosh – what a HORRIBLE mess!!

I took a good 30 minutes and REALLY looked over my favorites.  Gee, it’s amazing what you’ll find in there!  LOL!  I did get rid of a handful of links in there – more specifically because they weren’t going to be any good to me anymore.  (ie: I had a “great new idea” and have since decided against it.)

I created a bunch of new folders within in my favorites to get them more organized.  Wow – what a difference!  It looks so much neater and it will be so much easier for me to find what I’m looking for.  (And it fits all in one glance – no more arrows to scroll down farther!) 

Through all that – I now have only 3 links that didn’t “fit” into any of my folders.

So, what do you do?

Go through your Favorite – hopefully most of them you’ll remember WHY they are there but if you don’t – open the page and take a QUICK LOOK.  (No surfing allowed during this challenge!)  Hopefully then you’ll remember why it’s there. 

As you’re looking through – you’ll notice some that will be able to fit into a “category”.  When you come up with a category, create a new folder and move all the links that relate to that folder. 

Repeat this until you have a nice set of mostly folders in your favorites. (You’ll want more folders than individual links.)

DO remove sites that you’re sure you’re not going to use again but DO be careful! 

Against the normal “way” DO keep it if you’re not sure . In about a month, go back through them again and if you’re still not sure … then you could probably get rid of it. (Mark it on your calendar, put it on your to do list – whatever it takes for you to come back in about a month.)

But DO NOT go on a mass deletion session!  I don’t want you coming back here next week and yelling at me because you remembered why you wanted that site and now you have no idea where it was!  (lol!) 

Guess I should add my own little disclaimer statement here ….
I cannot be held responsible for any sites you deleted – you’re on your own!  

Do this right now. But, if you just “happened to come across this blog post” while working on a project and you don’t want to do it right now. Add your name and email address in that little subscription box on the —> right —> and I promise, you’ll be reminded to do this later.

Oh and of course you should also add this blog to your favorites – create a folder called “Visit Once a Day”

Join me in this challenge!

Good luck and let me know how it goes!