How to be an Organized Blogger Part 5 – Organize Your Emails + Junk Drawers

Today, I’m sharing with you the final part of my How to be an Organized Blogger Series.

Okay, two things (there are many more but I’ll leave you with two today) that bother me more than anything in this world and they are:

1) Unread/undeleted email messages and

2) Junk drawers

My eye twitches just thinking about it.

I’m going to show you how I solve both of those problems. Ready?

Organize Your Emails

Do you know someone like this? A person that just doesn’t click an email so it just sits there and after awhile the emails accumulate.

ARRGGGHH

This photo is from a link titled:  45 Photos That Will Annoy You More Than They Should (amen!)

via source (thanks Nikki!)

People of the world, just CLICK THE EMAIL and do something with it! Delete it or read it or unsubscribe. But why? WHY do you  have to let it just sit there like that saying ‘read me, read me’.

You will never see that with my inbox!

But how do you deal with the 100s (or in this case 1000s!) of emails that pile up?

• If it’s a forward or something I don’t want, I delete it right away.
• If it’s a newsletter type of email that you no longer want, unsubscribe
• If it’s something that needs attention today, star or flag it
• If it’s a job that you’ve completed, file it in a folder
• If it’s important information (login or registration information), file it in a folder.

What are these folders you’re talking about?

Here are a few of my folders. I counted all of them, I have 156 folders. I don’t know how many folders you can have but I’m willing to take on that challenge.

After you’ve gone through your inbox and deleted the unnecessary and filed the important, every item in your inbox should be a ‘to do’ item – something that truly needs an ACTION.

So when I look at my inbox, I know that every one of those emails needs an ACTION. Currently I have 50 emails in my inbox so that means I have 50 things to do. UGH.

But at least it’s not 4,483!

Honestly, it’s just as simple as that. Try to stay on your daily emails daily and go through your entire inbox at least once a week to weed out the unnecessary and file the important.

Just Say No to Junk Drawers

I HATE junk drawers. I don’t have any of them in my house.

Here is how I tackle all the little necessities we all need to have on hand.

Little drawers that keep everything in their place. I keep these two drawer sets next to my desk in my office.

(I bought these years ago at Ikea and don’t think they sell them anymore)

I do have some items in our kitchen office on the main floor but the majority of items stay here.

And seriously, my husband still asks…”where are the batteries?”

Um…in the drawer labelled BATTERIES!!

For important papers and bills, I use a filing cabinet and I use these white binders for other miscellaneous papers.

Instead of shoving loose papers in a junk drawer, organize them into categories and file them into a binder for easy reference.

Here are some ideas for binders that I use:

• binders for school newsletters, notices, parent contact information (one binder for each child)
• binders for the blog courses I take
• a binder for house renovation receipts
• a binder with all the paint colors I’ve used in my house and other house stuff
• a binder for miscellaneous information
• a binder for takeout menus

I have a binder that holds miscellaneous stuff and it’s great for those odd references you keep referring to but seem to forget from time to time.

Such as my organic cleaning solution.

Or how to sanitize baby toys.

I fill my binders with plastic clear sheets so I can slip a piece of paper into a slot when I need to hang on to something.

Hope this has inspired you to get your office organized!

Check out the all the posts in this series.

HOW TO BE AN ORGANIZED BLOGGER SERIES

Part 1 – Campaign Front Sheet printable (click here)

Part 2 – Organize Ad Networks & Affiliates with printables (click here)

Part 3 – Brand Contacts printable and To Do List printable (click here)

Part 4 – Bookkeeping 101 with spreadsheet (click here)

Part 5 – Organize Your Emails & Junk Drawers (today!)