I recommned clients use an e-mail program that is saved to their computer, such as Microsoft Outlook, and have a copy on your laptop, as well as linking to your smart phone, with backups to the Cloud. If you set up your e-mail as IMAP with the company providing the service, you can have your e-mails download on all three of your devices. The way you set up your service and your e-mail program will determine how much your e-mail program will be able to assist you.

A quality e-mail program empowers users to be able to refer back to past e-mails for future research. It is a good way to make sure you remember details correctly, over time. There is so much information that we receive and send by e-mail, these days and our work lives and even personal lives are busier than ever. It would be impossible to keep all details at the forefront of our memory. But we can recall so much more when we review information shared in our communication history. I constantly find valuable information in my library of saved e-mails.

It's a good idea to learn how to work some of the options of your e-mail program. There are usually little tutorials online. You can also just search the answer as needed, using your browser, as well as in the Help menu of your program. Help menus of all computer programs are usually filled with all the information you will ever need about how to do anything you can do with the program (as well as how to troubleshoot and correct problems, if you so desire). One important feature that e-mail programs include is a search bar, which enables you to search through all your folders to find any particular topic. You can actually search through the body of the e-mails, if the topic is not in the e-mail heading. I highly recommend clients learn how to use this. Another skill I highly recommend learning is how to create a filing system for your e-mails.

Instead of just doing a search through all your e-mails, it is usually more efficient to utilize a good filing system. As with all information, a good filing system will help you to quickly find all you need, including the history of your communications for each topic. I recommend creating a folder tree under your Inbox. It is easy to save my e-mails to individualized folders for easy retrieval. I have a main folder for Personal Life, under which I easily and quickly create a folder for every topic that crosses my e-mail desk, from Anti-aging to folders for each of my favorite people to upcoming events to Walking Trails.Another main folder in my folder tree is Current Jobs, in which I file every project, and each project folder is titled with client's name or my project title, if it's for me) and the due date and time. (For more information on managing projects, click here. Yet another main folder is Design Clients and I set up a folder for each of my clients with their first e-mail to me. I cannot tell you how many times I refer back to these. I have folders for Stores that carry my line of cards and a main folder titled Supplies, under which I have all the companies that I buy from. All my purchases generatee-mails, all which I put in the company's folder. Two years later, I can quickly find the online store that I'd researched online, and found had the best prices.