At the end of 2011, I posted about The Great American Inbox Cleanout. Basically, my inboxes were overflowing with both important and extremely unimportant emails, all in the same folder. I had a horrible habit of not deleting things, not even those little alerts you get when someone follows you on Twitter or comments on a blog post. It was one big mess, and I needed to get control of it.

I went through thousands and thousands of emails and deleted probably 90% of them. (One way to speed up the clean out process is to sort by sender. Then you can bulk delete all the emails from Facebook, Twitter, Livejournal, etc.) The other 10%, I moved into their very own folders. I think I might have a system now because it’s been two weeks and my email is still under control. Yay!

Folders are great. I don’t know how I survived without them. I mean, sure, I had a few over the last several years, but I actually have a method now. Every email has a place (unless it’s something that can be immediately deleted). If you’re a writer and you haven’t taken control of your emails and created folders, here are five folders that I think are a must for you to have.

1. Business Emails: If you consider writing a job – and especially if you declare any writing related business expenses on your taxes – you need a folder where you move the receipts for your online purchases. All the invoices from my web designer, my web host receipts, my receipts for Publishers Marketplace, from conference registrations, from image hosting site subscriptions, etc., go into this folder. They’re all in one place, so when tax time comes around, I can enter them relatively quickly or print them all off if needed. I didn’t have this folder last year, and it was a pain finding all my business receipts.

2. Editor/Agent Emails: You want to easily be able to find any and all correspondence you have with your editor and/or agent. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to stop while writing or rewriting because a certain scene reminds me of a comment my editor made. Having all the emails in one place makes finding the comment a cinch. Also? Sometimes, I just need a pep talk so I’ll go back and re-read how much they love my book. And if you don’t yet have an agent or editor yet, you definitely need this folder. I still have every response to every query I sent out to agents since 2003 (the early ones were for different books). Those requests and rejections remind me of how hard I worked to get to where I am.

3. Writer Friends: Don’t have any writer friends? Find some ASAP. You need them. Seriously. I can’t tell you how nice, how almost therapeutic, it was to be able to talk to Amanda while we were both oh-so-patiently *snort* waiting to hear back from editors. We went out on submission at about the same time. We were both UF writers, and we were both just starting out on this crazy publishing journey. She’s been a great friend and supporter, and I love celebrating achievements with her (like her RT 2011 Urban Fantasy Protagonist nomination!). I adore and appreciate all my writer friends, and I can’t wait for them to get their first agents, their first sales, their first NY Times Bestseller List appearances! *grin*

4. Bloggers: This is a new folder I just started, but already, I can see how beneficial it will be. In the chaos that was my life in 2011, I was so slow to respond to bloggers, and I even lost track of a couple of post dates. I really hate that, and I’m determined to be more organized in 2012! I appreciate bloggers. They do so much for authors. They put a lot of time and effort into their reviews, and the ones I’ve met in person and online are super nice. They definitely deserve their own folder and a quick response from writers.

5. Readers: Have I mentioned yet how fabulous readers are? They totally rock! I love hearing from them, and I only feel a tiny bit guilty when they say my book kept them up until 4am (MY BOOK KEPT THEM UP UNTIL 4AM!!!). Other readers have mentioned how my book has helped them unwind from a chaotic day at work. How awesome is that? I’d write even if no one ever read my books – the stories in my head really don’t give me a choice – but having people tell me they loved The Shadow Reader makes me feel better about the time I spend lost in my thoughts or staring at my computer. I definitely appreciate every single person who has taken a chance on a newbie writer like me, and I’m determined to respond to every email I get, no matter how busy and chaotic life might be.

What do you guys think? Any super important folders I’m missing? Do you have these folders?