Crazy email folders!

so today we're going to talk about email

specifically folders in email now Gmail

calls them tags every other app

basically calls them folders but

basically they're the same thing now

recently I posted a video showing my

workflow and my email folders and so on

and I got contacted by someone on

LinkedIn and we started having the

conversation and they sent me a

screenshot of their folder list and here

it is now it's a massive list you've got

accounts analytics Bank conversations

all the way down to the later even

working projects now this is a big list

now I've seen a lot bigger this this

isn't actually that as bad as I'm making

it out to be but I've seen a lot worse

but to be honest with having so many

folders you're basically wasting time

putting emails in these folders now I've

had a client I was moving a client from

their old email service to G suite so I

was moving their emails and they had

hundreds upon hundreds of folders no

emails but folders and in each of those

folders I can't remember seeing any more

than 10 or 20 emails in fact there was a

bunch with only like one or two emails

in them and I couldn't quite understand

why when I ask people why they have

folders the first thing they say is I

can search they can find things easier

now that can't be true in the past now

like 10-15 years ago the search facility

on these apps we're not great so I could

understand why you would have folders

but nowadays the structure of the search

the service that they have is so good

that you just don't need to put anything

in folders now in this list at the

bottom you've got work on projects now

if you've got emails pertaining to a

project you kind of should use a project

management tool now I know people don't

like using project management

Tawes because it sounds so big they

don't like to do lists call it a

workspace you need a workspace to put

your work in so you can go to your

workspace whether it's for your

prospects of your clients or the actual

work that you're doing for your clients

in that space and just copy/paste the

things that you need that's what I do so

if an email comes in and it's regarding

a prospect or a project or whatever I

take it and put it into todoist I used

to do it as my project management tool

but it's basically my workspace and

everything is in there

I even use it as a Web Clipper basically

for my fight when I find things on the

internet so don't use email as a like an

archive as such I mean that's weird to

say that you've got an archive of your

emails you can delete them but don't use

it as a space to store your information

where you kind of need to keep going

back to it I have two folders that I use

and that's email an archive sorry inbox

an archive so the in the in boxes

obviously self-explanatory I read it

delete it act on it and then I archive

it now I do have I'll put them up here I

have five tags within Gmail I actually

use G Suites of Gmail ease of the app

within G suite so I have five so

appointments business domains inquiry

invoice they're the only tags or folders

I have so whenever an email comes in it

gets automatically tagged with that tag

then the only reason I have these tags

is not to actually go into those tags to

find those emails I use them as like a

visual cue as to when they come in they

get tagged as appointment so an

appointment is basically usually a new

prospect so go in and you know deal with

this straight away I know that it's that

it's like a visual yeah a visual cue

basically for me

so don't actually use folders so the

only two fold

that I use are my inbox in my archive

now this again can work for some people

and I understand why people do this but

there's no real reason to do this

anymore especially with the search

functionality and the whole point of

working is obviously to make money but

the whole point is to make your life so

much make it life easier make it life

simpler there's no point trying to

complicate things with more more tools

or more and more processes cut down the

processes cut down the tools and just

focus on the work that you need to do so

the more you cut down the more your time

you have it's as simple as that

anyway that's all I wanted to show you

this was shared by permission so they're

ok with it keep it simple and I'll see

you in the next video

have a good day bye bye