Email can be difficult to deal with in an efficient and organized way.
Keeping emails organized into folders can help you to find the right email conversation, as can using your email search tools. But email correspondence is just one part of the story. If you’re trying to put together the history of working with a client, for example, you’ll have to search separately for related client files and notes. It’s not difficult to do, but it does take time and your search may come up with lots of unrelated information.
My previous blog post on email management here: 4 Steps to Becoming More Responsive can help. A better method may be to use a tool to keep email organized along with related information. Evernote is a great tool for this. (You can read more about using Evernote for managing client information here: 7 Tips to Manage Client Info.)
Also, if you’re organizing a trip, you can keep the research, photos, itineraries, email correspondence, and receipts in one notebook. If you’re managing a project, you can keep the tasks, notes, and email correspondence in another notebook.
How to save your emails to Evernote
The most efficient way is to cc: your Evernote email address in your email correspondence. This will put those emails in your default Evernote notebook. You can leave them there and use search to find those emails later, or you can go into Evernote and move them into other notebooks. You can also add those emails later by forwarding to your Evernote email address.
When you cc: or forward an email you can target a specific notebook by adding “@<notebook name>” to the end of the subject line. You can add tags by using #<tag> and reminders by using !<date>.
Emailing to Evernote requires an Evernote Plus paid account. Evernote also has a free version, but you’ll have the extra step of copying your email, going to your Evernote app, creating a new note, and pasting the email into it.
How to find your Evernote email address
When you sign up for an Evernote Plus account, you get an associated email address (something like username.XXX@m.evernote.com). You can find the address by going to your account info under “Tools” in the PC or “Help” on the Mac.
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“Drowning in Email – A Lifeline for Communications Overload”
