Get Organized for College: Week 1 Communication

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from The Marble Jar Channel and today's video is the first in a 7-part series to help you Get Organized for College. Even though this targets college students, it could be helpful for anyone who is struggling to organize life!  This first video will give an overview of the series and then start with organizing your communication -- meaning email, texts, voicemails, papers, etc. 

Overview of Series

Welcome to this 7-week series that will help you Get Organized for College.  During the next seven weeks, you will listen to videos on 7 areas of organization, choose your own tools to address each issue, implement your own system, and then maintain it throughout the 7 weeks and beyond.  By the time you are finished, you will have ways to deal with your communication (which I'll cover in this video), your appointments and events, your tasks and to-do list, the information you need to file both digital and paper, you will learn some tips for getting things done, and will work on better habits and self care.  At the end, there will be a bonus video on Planning for Classes and Big Projects.  If you are a parent wanting your student to watch this series, I have a separate introductory video for you!

Let's get started.

Communication (Email, Texts, and Voicemails, Paper)

Let's start with how information comes into your life -- otherwise known as communication.   You have to have a way to manage the constant stream of information or else you'll get buried by it.  Or you'll miss something important.  With most pieces of information, there are three options - Trash, File, or Act on.  When I go through my snail mail, I actually make these three piles to sort my mail into.  The Trash goes into the recycling bin, the File pile goes into my basket to file (more on this later), and each thing in the "Act on" pile either goes on my task list or gets taken care of right then and there.  This process is true for email as well.

Email

You will need to go through your email regularly -- I get to inbox zero at least once per day, but you may prefer a different frequency.  And when you do this, you'll start at the top of your inbox and make a choice for each message until it is empty:

• Trash - this one is easy.  If you don't need to act on it or save it for later, then simply hit the Delete button and it's gone!
• File - if you think you may need this information later -- you can file it.  Let me give you a couple of options for setting up your email file folders. 
• 1 - the simplest option is just to have a single folder called Saved Emails.  Every email that you want to save gets filed here.  Because this is just a giant repository for everything you want to save, you are relying on the search capability of your email service to be able to find specific emails later on. 
• 2 - a slightly more complex option is to think about what areas of your life you have.  Maybe you have three areas: school, personal, and activities.  You can make folders for each of these and file your emails accordingly.  That way, all emails regarding that area of your life will be grouped together.
• 3 - an even more complex option is dividing each of these areas into more granular topics.  For example, within School, you could have a folder for each class.  Within personal, you could have folders for financial, job, and travel.  You get the idea.  Just remember that although a complex folder structure may seem like a great idea now, it means that you'll have to make more decisions as you go through your inbox.  The more complex the organizational structure, the harder it is to maintain, so choose which one you'll be most likely to keep up with.
• Act on - This is the third option and means I need to do something as a result of receiving this communication.  At the simplest, it could be just that I need to respond to the email.   At it's most complex, this email could be kicking off an 8-week project that I need to plan and execute.  Either way, I need to either act on the email now, which I will do if it takes 3 minutes or less, or put it on my task list (more about this later in week 3).

+Outstanding Questions

I highly recommend adding a folder for emails that contain questions you are waiting to hear back on.  I named this folder +Outstanding Questions.  The plus sign is so it pops up higher on my folders list and the emoji is so I can recognize it quickly.   Every time I write an email that contains a question that I need a response on, I blind copy myself on the email.  Then I get a copy back in my inbox, which I file in this folder.  Then once I week, I go through all of my Outstanding Questions and either delete emails that have already been answered or follow up again.  If I need an answer more quickly, I will put it on my calendar or task list to follow up sooner, but at least I know where the email is.

Junk Mail Account

As you are going through your inbox, you may notice that you have a ton of junk mail coming in.  I cannot emphasize this enough -- you need to be vigilant about getting rid of the junk mail.  The first thing I suggest that you do is create a Junk Email Account -- I use Yahoo Mail for this.  Every time you buy something online or are asked for an email address for something non-urgent, use this email address.  I can always check this email account if I'm waiting for a shipment or need a coupon, but normally I just let the mail in that account stack up.  You are going to want to contact vendors to change your email address or unsubscribe from mailing lists and be ruthless about this.  Otherwise, you are going to spend a lot of time deleting or filing messages that are just cluttering up your inbox.

+2 Read

I like getting email newsletters or emails with lists of curated articles, but I don't always have time to read them.  I want to save them, but I don't want them cluttering up my inbox, so I store them in a +2Read folder so that, when I have some down time, I can go back and read them.  I used to think of these as emails that I needed to "Act On," but then I'd end up taking 2 hours to clean up my inbox!  If you have emails like this coming in, consider creating a +2Read folder as well.

Texts, Voicemail messages, What's App, Teams, etc. etc. etc.

I get more emails than I do any other kind of communication, but this may not be true for you.  In addition, many other platforms like texting don't give you the option of filing old messages, or even marking them as unread, so they just get buried under newer messages.  I like to check all of my messaging platforms at least one time a day to make sure I have responded to everything and don't have action items outstanding.  Just like anything else, if I can respond to or take care of the issue in 3 minutes or less, I do it then, otherwise it goes on my task list.  Another option is that I'll screen shot the message and send it to my email inbox -- I don't like having too many streams of information, so I like to consolidate them all into email.

Regular Maintenance

Setting up a system is great, but it will mean absolutely nothing if you don't keep up with it.  Communication platforms need regular maintenance or  you will quickly be buried in new messages and will get caught missing something important or forgetting to complete something.  So, you'll need to figure out how often you want to get to inbox zero for email, to follow up on outstanding questions, and to check the remainder of your communication platforms.  And then actually do it! 

This Week's Tasks

Your tasks for this week will involve setting up email folders, determining how often to perform communication tasks, and getting your email and other platform inboxes down to zero.   There is a link to a worksheet containing all of these tasks in the description below.  As a note, you may need a sizeable chunk of time for this first week since you'll be getting your inbox to zero for the first time.

I'd love to hear how things go.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!

Actions for Communication Week