Tips to Organize Your Art, Art Group, Art Business Emails
The only way to avoid an Inbox nightmare is to organize your email inbox. Everyone needs to do this including artists. If you are in an art group, another reason for organization as they mix with your personal and other art emails too. Here are some tips and tricks to help organizing that email.
Inbox Organizing
And here we thought being an artist was just painting all day...
Sure, artists use every email service out there including Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, etc., but many of them use some of the same features (with different names) to help organize, label, flag, tag, archive, create a Rule, and to filter your inbox. You need to find what will work best to manage your emails in a way that makes sense for you.
There are much easier ways to keep all of your email accounts - personal, business, and art group emails separated, yet within the same inbox - which is not all that difficult to do. Google Search or YouTube the topic and follow the directions or ask your computer savvy 14 year old (kidding but you know its true).
Here are samples: Add an Email Account to Outlook or for Gmail: Merge Multiple Gmail Accounts Into One Inbox: A Step-by-Step Guide
Decide how you need to separate your emails by: Personal, Work, Clients, Bills, Art Suppliers, Art Group(s), etc. These could be the folders, labels or categories and way the emails will be coming in and landing.
Outlook
A few notes about using Outlook:
Microsoft Outlook integrates with Office - so Word, Excel, Powerpoint, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams may be on the radar if you have Outlook.
Outlook uses Folders and Subfolders. There are many options like sorting alphabetically, priority, etc.
Automating where emails land is set up with creating a Rule, then running that rule. So instead of all emails coming in and landing in a generic Inbox, you can direct emails from specific entities or people to the properly labeled Folder.
Hence, mostly all of my PWAS member or group emails land in my PWAS Folder.
7 Microsoft Outlook Tips and Tricks for Better Email Management
Gmail
Gmail is free for personal use although premium plans for business are available. The productivity tools include Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and Meet.
Gmail uses Labels
Tabs: Primary +
How to Organize Your Gmail Inbox in 15 Minutes (17 Tips + Examples)
Art Email Tips
- Combine email accounts (learn how) when possible.
- Although I will say that one thing I do, because I need to use my personal and art business in Outlook AND I have this PWAS account in Gmail, I keep those separated on my computer. My computer monitor is large enough to accommodate a Google browser for Outlook (always on the left) and a Mozilla browser for Gmail (on the right). For me, this helps to keep the two worlds separated when they need to be as well as separate social email accounts, with different logins so that my worlds do not collide.
- Always check your Spam or Junk Emails to ensure important emails are not lost. Move the email from that folder to the correct one to help prevent losing them. Create a rule if needed.
- When replying to your art group especially, stick to the SUBJECT of the original email. If you are introducing a NEW topic, create a different email thread with that subject line. When someone is searching for an email or topic, a search for that subject line helps to filter to better results. For example: if a person sends out an email for your art group on Grants, all the responses to that email should be about Grants. The same for Calls for Art or any other topic. In other words, create a NEW email or find the original topic email and just don't reply because you need to ask or create a different request to the sender. I hope that makes sense!
- Reply and Reply All - this is the bane of many an art group member, too many emails. In email etiquette, ONLY use the Reply All IF, I mean IF the response is extremely important to every single person ON that email. The pet peeve for everyone is an email congratulating an artist for an award, acknowledgement etc. and someone does a Reply All with "Congratulations!" Sure, nice comment but congratulate the artist directly. In other words, use Reply All sparingly!
- CC Email (Carbon Copy): whomever you input into this TO field receives a copy of the email and can see that they are included. Its best use is to expand the conversation if the CC'd person can add valuable input to the thread. They don't necessarily need to respond if they can't add value, but its important that they are aware of the subject.
- BCC Email (Blind Carbon Copy): whomever is input in BCC receives a copy of the email but cannot see who else received the email (protecting privacy), nor receive replies to the email thread.
- Go to the Source! Direct your emails to the right groups or person. The PWAS Website has ALL of the important emails to direct your question, expression or suggestion. See About > Board and Contacts in the menu navigation of the PWAS website. https://princewilliamartsociety.com
- Clean out the Inbox. If you have emails from the beginning of time, I mean YEARS ago and they aren't important any more, delete them.
- Unsubscribe to anything if they are so piled up you will never read them. https://www.princewilliamartsociety.com/board
- Periodically check if your email structure is working for you as you intended. Do you need to filter more? Adjust your categories as needed.
- DO set up an email signature. Create a professional Email Sig with your full name, website link(s), I believe its just good procedure. Occasionally, I will get an email from someone with initials or a first name only - usually its straightforward who it came from (the email address may be the clue), but if you have several Sams in your group, Sam who?
- Too many emails? Can or does your art group have a Facebook group that could be set at private so only the art group members can join and chat? Many emails end up being discussions with an email thread that goes on forever. Much easier in a FB group. PWAS has just such a group. Current PWAS Members only. You'll need to be on Facebook though!
For the techie artists, do you have any other suggestions about email? How about a link to a video you have found that helped? Drop a comment below!
For Further Reading:
How to Organize Your Emails: 11 Management Tools
How to Organize Emails and Manage Your Inbox
Organize Your Inbox in Outlook for Windows
How to Organize Yahoo Mail Inbox Quickly in 2024
Outlook vs Gmail in 2023: Which is Better for You?
And I have NEVER used a Mac, but several of our artist members do. Most everything is only a YouTube video away.
Art Need to Know Etiquette Posts
Email Etiquette and Organizing - There are definitely do's and don'ts when it comes to email! Everyone needs to learn the proper use of emails.
Artist Etiquette - Art show do's and don'ts, pickup and drop off and more.
Not Necessarily Art Notes, but... - Art Etiquette for emails, art shows, volunteering and more.
Artistry Spin Blogmaster and an artist member of PWAS in Woodbridge, VA, specializing in acrylic painting. She paints landscapes, seascapes, animals and many subjects. Visit her Website at DonnaLiguriaArt.com, her Donna's Esty site and her Blog at Donna’s Cave Paintings.
Local Art: The Prince William Art Society is a 50+-year-old non-profit art group in PWC for the appreciation of fine art throughout the county and Northern Virginia. Visit us at any of our local art shows or join us for our monthly meetings - held on the 4th Monday of the month at the Tall Oaks Community Center at 12298 Cotton Mill Dr, Woodbridge, VA at 7:30pm
Want to join PWAS? Go to https://www.princewilliamartsociety.com/membership
