Thing 14: Email

To accomplish Thing 14, I learned more about the components of an email and methods for effectively organising my emails. 

When I first read the SSSC's breakdown of an email, I was surprised to find that there was quite a lot I didn't know about emails. This is slightly concerning when I consider the extent to which I use email communication in my daily life! For example, I wasn't aware of the key distinction between Cc, carbon copy, and Bcc, blind carbon copy. While the Cc function allows me to copy the email to individuals who are not the primary recipients, the Bcc function enables me to do this without revealing the email addresses of the recipients to one another, ensuring that the recipients' contact details are private to everyone but myself. This has many potential uses and benefits. Bcc can be used to send an email to a large mailing list, including professional correspondence addressing all of the employees in a company, and to protect the privacy of recipients who don't know each other. 

In addition to exploring the various functions of email, I considered several different approaches for organising my inboxes to streamline my email management process. While there are a multitude of ways to organise email folders, I chose to organise my messages in separate inboxes associated with the different email accounts I currently have: iCloud, Gmail and an alumni email account tied to my university. This was particularly useful for me because I tend to use separate accounts for different types of communication, i.e. an account specifically for my shopping and subscription updates. I found the process of organising my incoming emails into a clear email management system to be incredibly beneficial for quickly identifying personal and professional communication. I anticipate that this will act as a preventative measure against accidentally sending an email to the wrong recipient, which can have mild to very severe consequences depending on the context! Moving forward, I might experiment with adding additional folders to further organise the contents of my accounts, for instance by following the five-folder system and grouping emails in each inbox according to deadlines or required response times.