<p>Maintaining an organized mailbox for your email can be very important, especially if you receive a large number of messages every day. Overlooking or simply forgetting about important emails can sometimes be very easy to do, so Hotmail provides numerous tools to help you keep your messages organized and to find the most important ones. Flagging emails is one method of email organization, and its effective use can help you quickly and easily identify important messages. Organization Tools</p><p>Hotmail provides a variety of methods to help you maintain a well-organized mailbox. One option is to apply categories for your email. Default categories in Hotmail include "Bills," "Family" and "Photos," though you can create other categories if you prefer. Once one or more of these categories are applied to a message, it will always retain those categories unless you manually remove them. Additionally, you can create folders to store email permanently regardless of category. Default folders include "Sent," "Deleted" and "Drafts." One more organizational tool is flagging email, which simply notes a message as important without specifying a category or associated folder. Flagging Overview</p><p>Flagging an email from your inbox (or any folder) simply requires clicking the white flag icon beside the subject of an email. After clicking the icon, the flag will turn to a red color, indicating the email has been flagged; if you click the icon again, the icon will revert, indicating the email is un-flagged. In some cases you may have a very large number of messages, and you can quickly isolate only flagged email by clicking the "Flagged" view option in the left-hand navigation area below the section titled "Quick views." Advanced Flagging Options</p><p>You have some more advanced methods if you want to use flagging as efficiently as possible. One simple method of flagging an email you're currently reading is to use a keyboard shortcut: pressing the "l" key (for the second letter in the word "flag"). You can also configure Hotmail to always display flagged email at the top of your email list. This option is available by clicking "Options" near the top right corner of the Web page when you're viewing email and then selecting "More options," then "Flagging." Rules</p><p><a href="http://science.opposingviews.com/flagging-hotmail-4693.html">Keep reading...</a></p>