Create inbox folders in Outlook

- [Instructor] If your inbox is the only folder that you use to work with incoming email, you're going to have a real mix of items in there. First you'll have messages that are in process, messages that perhaps you've only just skimmed or messages that you've read but you haven't finished whatever work you needed to do with them. You may also have messages that you are done with. The work is complete, but the message hangs around in your inbox either because you can't delete it, because your organization has a retention policy or perhaps because you've learned through experience that you can have a message that you're done with and it's still a good idea to keep it around for a little while just in case. And then of course you'll have any messages that you haven't read yet, including new incoming messages seamlessly sliding into this mix of items that are in process and items that are completed. The primary strategy for wrangling your inbox is to simply separate these different types of messages to be able to say, here are the messages I'm working on and over here are the messages that I'm done with and then to save your inbox for new incoming messages. The simplest system that I have ever seen for organizing one's inbox is used by a colleague of mine named Mike Young who works in IT at a community college. Most of Mike's requests that come into his inbox are for him to do something specific. For example, he'll get a request to set up a public folder for Outlook, or to create a new account or perhaps to create a new application. So Mike created two folders in his inbox and they allowed him to manage his work and increase his efficiency. Mike's first folder is called to-do and Mike uses this folder to store those items that he has read and is working on. Mike has another folder called ta-da where he places the items that are completed, but that he still wants to retain. This leaves Mike's inbox open for incoming messages, which he then reads, either manages and puts in ta-da or creates a plan to work on it and puts it in to-do. I will be honest, I need more folders than Mike has. I like folders for specific projects. Now, currently I have projects that don't generate a lot of email because they are managed in another application like Microsoft Teams, but I still have projects that generate a lot of email. One of the projects I have right now that I'm working on is a staff survey initiative. And I would also like to create a folder for a new project that is an onboarding project. We're creating an onboarding system using Microsoft Power apps so let's go do that. Let's create these two folders. To create a folder, first select the folder that is going to contain the folder you're going to create. So I'm creating inbox folders and one easy way to create a new folder from here, simply right click and choose new folder. And my first folder is going to be called staff survey, just like that. Now I want to create a folder for my onboarding project. If I right click right now, I will be creating the onboarding project as if it is part of the staff survey and it's not. So remember, start where you want to create the folder, in this case, my inbox, right click new folder, onboarding project. I have my two folders. By the way, you can drag and drop these in a different order if you wish. I actually like alphabetized as a choice, but you can rearrange them so that they're in some priority order instead. Now I already know that as I start working with these folders, I'm going to discover that there's really something missing. And the something missing is that I work on a lot of different projects. So I don't want to have every project folder at this level. It would be better for me if I created a folder for projects and inside of that folder for projects, I could place the onboarding project and the next project I work on and the next. This is going to make more sense for me. So let's go make a change. I'm going to go back to my inbox, right click, create a new folder and I'm going to call this new folder all projects. Now I'm going to grab that onboarding project folder and I'm going to drag it and drop it in all projects. And I'm prompted, are you sure you want to move the folder onboarding project inside the folder all projects, yes. And now all projects you'll notice has an expand button and when I do, the onboarding project is part of all projects. So I have a nested set of folders here. Staff survey is a major level. It's not a project, it's a independent committee actually. And then we have all projects and I will continue to create folders for new projects inside of them. Another way we might talk about these folders that we've created so far is that the inbox has two child folders right now, all projects and staff survey and the all projects folder has one child folder onboarding project. I'm just telling you that language because you'll see the words child folder and parent folder used in some of the documentation around how we create folders.