Ever tried to organise a really, REALLY, REALLY messy room?

Picture a messy, disorganised, cluttered, upside-down room. No, not that one, messier! Almost there! Messier still! Got it?

Okay, now imagine you have to organise it. But, you cannot throw anything out, and there just is not enough space to hold everything even if you could arrange it.

An almost impossible task if you really give it some thought.

Office paperwork is just like that. Computer file systems. Network storage. E-mail inboxes too.

You might not be able to do anything about all the office paper cluttering up your life, and the computer file system might just be a battle best not fought, but you do not have to win every battle to win the war with clutter.

If you are anything like me, some days you spend almost your entire existence with your e-mail client open, sending messages back and forth across the world with clients, employees and contractors, and hopefully keeping track of it all with dozens of flagged messages awaiting a follow-up or further action to be taken.

The other issue we all face is the "pack rat" mentality when it comes to digital data. Storage is cheap so why not save everything? The only problem is that software applications and their search features are not keeping up with the glut of information we are collecting.

The major problem with most e-mail systems is that they are not actually engineered to allow the end-user, that would be you, to get things done, and get them done efficiently.

Face it, Microsoft Outlook and gmail are very fine applications, but they are stuck in the 1970’s idea of e-mail workflow methods. Microsoft even has an add-on package that you can purchase that provides enhanced CRM (customer relationship management) features to ensure that follow-ups and contact information does not fall through the cracks. Most modern era e-mail packages used in the 21^st century cater to a lowest common denominator in terms of functionality and provision for communication.

For this article, I am concentrating mostly on the features of Microsoft Outlook as I have found that is the package most people, who run Microsoft Windows and take their e-mail seriously, actually use. Apple Mac OS X is a whole other subject and I will have to talk about that at another time to give it the time and treatment it deserves.

There are a couple of really simple steps you can employ to getting on top of the e-mail clutter and staying there. Many of the steps are applicable to other e-mail clients too, but some of the plug-ins worth investigating are only available for Microsoft Outlook.

The first step, and the most obvious one, is to create folders for important e-mails such as business correspondence (one for each client), friends (one for each person or category) and family. Microsoft Outlook makes this easy, and using the search function will let you track down all of the e-mails to or from a particular person and move them into the proper folders.

Once you have the folders set up, you can automatically direct all future e-mails to the proper folders by setting up filters in Microsoft Outlook. Unfortunately, whilst the filtering system is reasonably powerful, it is hellishly cumbersome to work with if you have many custom rules and if I really recommend purchasing an add-on package that will make the sorting and storing of e-mails much easier.

There are several add-on products available for Microsoft Outlook that can automatically shuffle your e-mail to the appropriate folders, or even delete it completely before you ever get to see it. The latter functionality being very useful for those annoying aunts that send you the funny cat pictures.

My personal favourite at this time is SimplyFile from TECH HIT. SimplyFile works with all current versions of Microsoft Outlook, and has been very stable in day-to-day usage. After a brief automated training period, SimplyFile acts like a switchboard operator, routing e-mails to the appropriate folders without any nudging from you.

Beyond the automated filtering system in SimplyFile, there are also two very useful features that make working with Outlook so much easier. The first is the “create task from e-mail” option, allowing you to create an Outlook task from the e-mail you are reading, and the other is “create appointment from e-mail” which sets up a dated event at some point in the future. Both of these features are worth the price alone if you have a lot of e-mails that

The company that makes SimplyFile, TECH HIT also make two other great products, called EZDetach and MessageSave which are both worth checking out and help with the clutter in your e-mail.

The greatest waste of time you can force upon yourself when it comes to organising e-mail is to not organise it at all. The search features in gmail, Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mac Mail are exceptionally capable, when they work, but over-reliance on indexing and search when everything is just dumped into a big pile will eventually bite you in arse once the number of e-mails you have to wrangle goes beyond a few hundred messages.

If you have to keep correspondence from clients, business partners, sales leads, employees and colleagues, you need to create a systematic process that can be applied the moment you handle a message. Just like in the ideal world of handling a piece of paperwork only once, if you want to be as efficient as possible, you must apply the same principle to e-mail correspondence too.

Got other non-obvious tips for efficient handling of e-mail? Drop me a line or leave a comment and I’ll be sure to create a follow-up article.

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There are few endeavours in life that require you to immediately stop what you are doing, go off and read a couple of pages in a book, browse through Google Groups or search Stackoverflow for a close enough answer and then return to work.

And yet, this is what people do all the time.

Stuck for an idea? Research!

Do not feel like writing? Research!

Cannot seem to figure out the solution to a problem? Research!

Most office workers are constantly shifting gears, going from work to research, and back to work, and then back to research, throughout their work day. Talk about inefficient.

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Time-Wasting Tip-Off, where you might just find that conducting research is actually counter-productive to the creation process.

Perform Your Research During Research Time

Let us be up front about this, never, ever let facts, or the lack of them, get in the way of anything you do. For most of the tasks you perform and projects you undertake, the gather of factual information, or further information, whilst in the middle of the creative process is just a hindrance to progress.

Many projects and sizable tasks need and should be broken up in to discrete phases, first research and due diligence, followed by whatever the task entails to “make something happen.” Mixing different types of work just slows the whole enterprise.

As an example, writing has, and should have, very discrete phases, if you want to be very, very productive. Idea generation, research, writing, editing, further research, fact checking, are all examples of these individual phases and a good, and above all, disciplined writer knows when to do each phase and when not to try and shift gears and combine two phases in to one.

Yeah, but what happens when you are writing like a madman and hit a wall and need to know some information to continue?

Ask yourself this, is the information vital to the narrative or plot point right now that you cannot write another word without filling in the missing blanks on the information?

Research when it is time to research. Write when it is time to write. Once you are writing, should you need more research, just put in a quick note indicating a lack of information and further research to be done, then get right back to writing.

I know of many writers who, when they are not sure of a fact, or need to perform research on something, whilst in the middle of their flow, will just insert the two letters, TK, [insert link to a writer who uses TK] and just keep on writing as though they had the information.

The letters T and K are not in any English words [verify this fact] very few English Words, so it becomes exceedingly easy to perform a find and replace on them once the actual writing work is done and the writer returns to doing further research. By doing it this way, the writer can remain in their flow state and become super productive without being bogged down in details.

Personally, I do not use the TK method, instead preferring the use of [square brackets] with a comment inside them to remind me what I needed to do. I find that the usage of square brackets allows me to search quickly and they stand out like a sore thumb when I format just those characters in Microsoft Word to display as bright neon pink.

When programming I will insert JRL (my initials), followed by the six digit date, which I can easily search for in all of my source code files. This little tag in the source reminds me to write more error checking, clean up a particular section of code, or just figure out why in the durn hell it does not work the way I expected it to.

This same principle applies to many other tasks and activities too. A placeholder graphic in a website design, a discordant audio effect in place of the real one during development of a video game, a neon green or hot pink image as the texture on a 3D model can all substitute for the real item when what you need to do is the work and not worry about the details.

So many people fall in to the trap of “perfect research.” They avoid putting off the actual task, such as writing, until the perfect amount of research is completed. Sometimes it pays to have only partial research, with incomplete information, and just begin the required task, filling in the missing details later.

A good enough solution that takes advantage of the opportunity available to you now is far, far better than a perfect solution delivered after the opportunity has passed you by.

What other areas of your life can you put TK on and return to later, after you have become super productive?

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