Many guys think, "If a little is good, a lot is better," but when it comes to e-mail, a lot can be a real headache to organize. Try as I might, staying organized isn't always possible. After you experience the frustration of looking high and low for that certain e-mail you know is there somewhere, you'll resolve to get organized someday. Well baby, today is that day. Let's get our e-mail straightened out right now.

Organizing e-mail is a lot like organizing your hard drive, or for that matter, it's a lot like organizing your paper correspondence. We will focus on two methods: filtering and filing.

What Is It?
I once had a client who, after reading her incoming e-mail, automatically deleted all of it. Her Trash folder had more than a thousand messages in it, and she would just scroll through it when she wanted to find a particular one. I’ve seen others who leave everything in the Inbox.

Storing e-mail in folders is one of the easiest ways to organize them. If you get a lot of e-mail, you'll want to regularly set aside time for catching up on your filing, just as you would with paper correspondence. The filing process varies from dragging and dropping to moving the individual letters you've sent and received. For example, I have a folder named GENTECH and a subfolder named 2001, and I put copies of information about that conference into that folder.

Yes, I said "sent." I file my sent items in the same folders with my received items. Sorting that folder by subject and date allows me to reconstruct an entire dialog.

Filtering is a feature of some e-mail "clients" that automatically file incoming mail for you. After you set up the filing rules, which are most often called "filters," the e-mail program will put the messages into those folders when you collect your mail.

Name Two of Them
From what I can tell, the most widely used e-mail clients are QUALCOMM's Eudora, Microsoft Outlook, AOL Mail, and Netscape Messenger. All of these programs allow the use of folders. Neither AOL nor Netscape filters automatically.

Here are a couple of approaches to organization that you might consider. First, create a folder for each family name that you are researching. Also, create one for each project you undertake. If your mail program allows it, you might consider using "subfolders" just like subfolders on your hard drive. Perhaps under the family name you might have a folder named 1999 and one named 2000 where you put the e-mail from each year.

When It Works, What Does It Do?
Let's say you get e-mail from some people about the Propes family. You might create a Propes folder for that mail. Then you could set up a Propes filter that would automatically put any incoming e-mail that had Propes in the subject line into that folder.

Spend a little time on Saturday morning filing your outbox entries, and you'll have a current dialog of Propes information in the Propes folder—some of it read and some of it perhaps unread.

Your inbox will be less cluttered by various e-mails, and your ability to search for a given note quickly will be greatly improved.

What's the Downside?
The biggest downside to filing and filtering e-mail is that it takes time to keep it up. It's my opinion that the time you save by being organized is much greater than the time that you spend staying organized, so I do it.

Also, you might find yourself with an unread e-mail in a folder other than your Inbox folder, so it might take several days before you read it.

How Do I Know If It's Not Working?
If a filter is broken, you might receive an error message from your e-mail client, or you might see your inbox swell up with mail that used to go straight into folders. Either way, it's time to check your filters and then call your ISP.

What If I Change Computers?
Changing computers is a bit of a challenge—your e-mail can be moved, but the process varies from one computer to another. On one of my computers, my Outlook mail is in a file with a .PST extension that is half a gigabyte in size, holding more than 15,000 e-mails. Moving that baby from one computer to another is not easy. With Netscape, the folders are actually subfolders on your hard drive, and there can be more than a few of these.

The normal process of changing computers would be to install the e-mail program on the new computer and then copy the files(s) over from the old computer. You might need to re-enter your filters, also.

There are Mac versions of AOL Mail, Outlook, Eudora, and Netscape, so if you change from PC to Mac or vice versa, you’ll have the usual conversion problems.

What's the Genealogy Tie-in?
Today, almost every researcher has e-mail, if for no other reason than that it's "free" with the Web browsing account he or she got to use FamilySearch^TM. There are family name-oriented mailing lists, and e-mail quick and easy to use.

Link Me Up (more stars is better)

• SmartComputing.com ***
  Prints how-to books in plain english magazine format.

• Slipstick ****
  Microsoft and Exchange information

• Eudora Mail ***
  Includes user guides and tutorials

• Microsoft Outlook Site **
  Information about Outlook 2000

• Netscape Messenger Site ***
  Information about version 4.x

What Else?
If you set up folders, use filters, and keep up your filing, you can position yourself to find addresses for people better, follow up better, and reconstruct past conversations better.

Beau Sharbrough is the president of GENTECH, the founder of the GENTECH and FGS Web sites, and a founder of the Lexicon Working Group. He would like to hear from you at beau@sharbrough.net, but due to the volume of e-mail received, he is unable to answer every e-mail message received. Please note that he cannot assist you with your individual computer problems. Visit Beau's Web site for information about speaking engagements. Beau is the father of two college-age girls and is another insufferable graduate of Texas A&M University.

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