If you receive tons of email messages every day like I do, you probably find it hard to keep up with it all. I use MS Outlook as my email client, and my inbox is never empty. I’ve set up at least 50-75 folders in an attempt to organize all of my messages; I have folders for each client, each vendor, each team member, each networking group, and the list goes on. Email is the one area in my life where I would be considered a packrat―I throw nothing away! I have been known to dig up year-old email messages so I can review my correspondence with a client, a vendor, or a team member.

One thing that has always irked me is having to search for the email messages I’ve sent. Weeding through the thousands of messages in my Sent folder is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, especially if I’m looking for a message to someone whom I email frequently. This doesn’t take into account the enormous number of email messages I send and receive, which bogs down Outlook fast!

Recently I found not one but two pretty awesome add-ons for Outlook that I now cannot live without. Besides helping me reduce my email overload, they also allow me to organize on a whole new level and to keep my email account under control much more efficiently than before. This week, I’ll tell you all about the first tool I found.

SpeedFiler
Claritude Software offers SpeedFiler, an Outlook add-on that helps keep your inbox clutter-free by allowing you to quickly file incoming and outgoing messages where they belong. SpeedFiler has many options and customizations, but it basically prompts you to select a folder in which to file each email message. How can this help you? Well, normally Outlook inconveniently dumps all your outgoing messages into your Sent Items folder. Once you install SpeedFiler, a convenient little box will pop up when you send a message to ask where you want to file it. So when I send an email to a client, ABC Company, I select that client’s folder―and voila! There’s no more searching for messages that I sent to ABC Company because they will always be in that client’s folder. You can save even more time by applying the same quick and easy process to your incoming messages.

I’ve also been using SpeedFiler to help me track requests, a tip I picked up from their website. I work with a team of people, a number of vendors, and 15 or more clients at any given time, and it’s just too darned hard to keep up with every request I send to people. Maybe I sent an email to a client regarding changes to her website, or maybe I asked a question of one of my team members. Once the message has left my outbox, it is forgotten―until I realize that I haven’t received a response and I NEED an answer. Does this sound familiar?

So I created a folder called “Awaiting Response,” and each time I send a message that requires an answer, I use SpeedFiler to file the message to that folder. When I check back on that folder daily, I remove any messages that I’ve received responses to by refiling them in the appropriate folders. If I haven’t received a response in a couple of days, then I follow up with that person.

If you have way too many messages in your inbox and have more than 20 folders, SpeedFiler will save you time. So what’s the downside? I haven’t found one―not even the fact that you have to pay for this add-on―but they do have a free 30-day evaluation at www.claritude.com. My 30 days just ended, and I’m ordering mine today. It’s well worth the $24.95 to reduce the clutter in my life!

Tune in next time for Outlook Productivity Tools Part II.