I recently read a post from Adam Grant where he made the claim that sorting email into folders is a huge waste of time. According to him, we average 67 hours per year sorting email into folders and all that effort doesn't make it easier to find your messages. His recommendation is to just file all email into one folder. I had to let that sink in for a bit.
You see, I have been a big fan of email folders for years and even developed an extensive file system. But as I thought about this post from Grant, I realized how rarely I actually used almost all of those folders. I decided to clean things up a bit and looked for folders I could eliminate. I deleted over 100 folders and moved the emails into a handful of more general folders such as Finances, Training, or Personal. I also started using the Archive folder as my default storage location.
I don't miss my folders at all. I spend less time filing my messages and have to make fewer decisions about them. I love how easy it is to click either the delete or archive button and move on. You might be wondering about retrieving all those messages. I found I don't do it nearly as often as I thought I would, and when I do need to find something, the search function has worked very well.
If you want to simplify your email, streamline your digital file cabinet. If you haven't put anything in a particular folder since 2012, it might be a good indicator that you can archive those messages and delete the folder. You don't have to get down to one file folder but try to consolidate into just a handful of folders that you actually use. Try to make the Archive folder your default for almost all messages and get good at using the powerful search function built into your email program. Now you can use the extra hours per year to work on something that moves your work forward, because as far as I can tell, none of our jobs are evaluated by where we archive those emails.