Clear the clutter from my main e-mail account and keep it relatively clutter-free.

a while back, but the clutter has returned! But, I can say I’m coming up with another way to deal with them. G-mail has a filter feature, and I’ve been utilizing them to put them in different labels (aka folders) automatically. I’ve gone from having about 2000 unchecked e-mails to about less than 500 this way. I think this is the best way for me to deal with them. And, I’m glad I’m finally finding a system that works. The other one I came up with was too cumbersome.

I finished this process, finally! I now have 308 conversations left that are organized properly. Over the course of today I deleted 451 conversations and 42 MB of material.

I could not have done this without the information that dwlt had linked me to a while ago, though. That’s what my system is based on, and I am glad that I will never have to come up with another system or get that many e-mails build up in my account again.

this morning, and have already sorted through 200 of them! This goal should be accomplished within the next few days…maybe if I’m diligent, today.

It’s amazing what I really don’t find useful any more after looking over some of my stuff. I can’t wait until I’m done with this goal, though. I’ll never need this goal to be reactivated after I’ve finished with it. And, that’s why I’m being persistent with this. The good thing about my system is that I can actively use it while I’m working with filing and purging of my old messages without getting further behind from incoming stuff. I have around 1250 conversations I’m still dealing with right now in that account trying to organize. I am thinking that this process of doing organization with it, I do not want to attempt anything with my alternate account. I have over 4000 in that one!

and it’s going pretty smoothly. And, I’m also deleting yet more e-mail. It’s been really cool to see the numbers whittle down more and more. It’s going to take a while, but hopefully I’ll be able to spend a few minutes here and a few minutes there and eventually get it all taken care of. I have about 1300 conversations (groupings of messages) to deal with individually at this point.

I’ve been really thinking whether I want to create and implement an organization system for my alternate e-mail or not, too. I kind of do want to, but I kind of don’t care, too. I guess I’ll get the main one taken care of first and then decide.

I’ve got it created and established now. Now, I just need to implement it. I believe this will work for me if I’m good to do use it. It’s a label system for my G-mail account: Pending, This Week, This Month, This Quarter, Business Archives, Personal Archives, Church E-mails, Wx, Project 1, Project 2, Project 3, Project 4, Contact Information, and Pictures. The Pending label contains messages that need to be gotten to easily and are stuff like bills, etc. E-mails that I’m not sure if I’ll keep or not will go into This Week, and by Saturday of each week I’ll clear that one out and place any I’m still unsure of into the This Month label. That label will get cleared out at the end of each month and any messages I’m still unsure of will go into This Quarter. That label will get checked each March, June, Sept. and Dec. At the end of each of those months a message has to either be filed away permanently or deleted. The Project labels are for temporary projects that I want to have easy access to e-mails. This would be things like a college reunion trip or planning a social event, etc. I get church e-mails just about everyday at least once, so I want a place I can keep them all for reference, and plan to clear them out periodically. Personal label is for friends and family’s e-mails I want to keep permanently. Business label is for subscription services, financial, etc. stuff I want to keep permanently. Contact information may eventually be moved to something else, though. Wx is for weather bulletins dealing with hurricane season. There can be over a dozen of those a day, so I have a filter set up to deal with those automatically.

I deleted close to 500 messages today. However, I don’t think I’ll be able to file everything away appropriately by the end of today. I’ll work to have this done by the end of next week.

is my “sent mail.” I tend not to do anything to organize those e-mails. Is this really necessary? I have close to 500 sent messages.

but I’d been slacking a lot lately. I’d let over 100 e-mails build up again. However, I’m doing a lot better at reading stuff and deleting than I ever have done previously. I’m going to work on this and try to get everything sorted into appropriate areas instead of having everything in my holding folder. I’ve also done more thinking about my system, and I’ll be doing some tweaking of it, too. This task should be accomplished today!

Turns out I’m way better than I thought – no one forwards me anything because I told them to stop (plus I just deleted them anyway without reading them) and I only receive one newsletter. I am on one mailing list which I currently have about 12,000 unread emails on, but I just use that as a knowledge base, and just search on it if I think there might be something useful in it.

Of course, I actually get most news via RSS feeds now, but even there I just have tendency to hit “Mark all as read” if I don’t see a headline that interests me.

Current unread emails (I only have 2.5 accounts): 1 (and that’s one I sent to myself, so it probably doesn’t count).

I’m still working on it, but I’m reworking the filing system I have for e-mails…I’ve deleted some folders and created others. The system is coming together, though. If I work hard at this, I should have this done in a couple of weeks.