How to Better Manage Your Email Inbox and Increase Productivity

When I set up my first free web-based email account around 1999, I had about three contacts who emailed me regularly. Inbox management during that time was a simple task. Now fast forward to 2008 when I am daily bombarded with not only Spam, but also promotional material from sites that I have done business with, silly messages forwarded to me from well-meaning friends and family members, and the actual email that is urgent that I actually care about. If you feel the same then I have some tips for you to get your inbox back. Some of it will be easy and some points will require the breaking of some old habits and strict introspection into what your needs really are. Real inbox management is not for the faint of heart. You must have the guts to sort, prioritize, ignore and yes, even delte your messages to get down to the brass tacks of determining that communication which is truly meaninful to your life and that which is just getting in the way.

Before simplifying my system of email management I had my inbox where I kept messages that I thought I may need again for some task. Then I had several different subfolders to which I filtered messages from certain types of people and for certain types of business. I realized that while I receive a lot of email, I did not need this extensive level of sorting and that my life could be much simpler. Here is how I did it and it will probably work for you as well.

The "To Do" File

Probably the most important communiques you will receive are those that require some action on your part. Whether it be immediate action or some time-sensitive future action, you do not want these to fall by the wayside. So create yourself a sort of To Do list. Actually it is more like a To Do file. Beside or beneath your inbox, in your mail client of choic, create a new folder and call it To Do (or whatever suits your purposes). The way this file is used is whenever you receive email that asks you to perform an action then move it here. Now you certainly do not want to forget these. Therefore you will need to make checking this file a daily habit for you. You may need to check it multiple times a day if you have a lot of email coming in that you are moving to the To Do file. The point is for messages to stay in the To Do File for no more than two days. This will get those messages out of your inbox and reduce clutter but it will also give you a higher level of visiblity for those messages which require action on your part. Such action may be to pick up a package or to contact someone else such as a client, or simply to respond with certain information.

If you do happen to overlook an item in your "To Do" file, before you go losing your head, send a quick response asking the initial sender if that action is still needed. It may be that you no longer have to do anything thus saving yourself some time.

The "Archived" File

The "Archived" file is the next folder you want to create for your email. The "Archived" file will be where you will store messages that were useful at one point (so you do not want to get completely rid of them) but have fulfilled their purpose for the present. So once you complete one of the tasks in your "To Do" file then it is time to move that item to the "Archived" file. In this way you can simply pull it back up in the archive if you ever need to refer to it again. Also if you receive email that is of an informational nature but does not require action on your part, you may still want to keep such a message for your records. The "Archived" file is perfect for those kinds of messages. You can put them away in a safe place and get them off the table, so to speak, but you know right where to find them if you need them in the future.

The Trash: Final Destination for Forwards and Useless Messages

Say it with me: The Trash is my friend. Sometimes you receive emails that you simply do not need. They do not tell you anything of value and they do not require a response or future action. It is okay to delete these. Some examples of these types of emails may be when someone sends you a forward or a joke or other such annoyance. Sometimes you may be interested in reading these. But other times the forward just needs to find its way to the trash folder. However this may be a good time to respond to that person with a polite message and state diplomatically that you do not care to receive anymore such forwards from them. Some people may be offended but most probably will not care and will obey your wishes. This simple gesture, done kindly, can go a long way to clearing the clutter that lands in your inbox.

Another example is if a friend emails you to tell you that he has posted pictures from a concernt he attended on his Flickr account. Do not feel that you need to reply to every message that comes across your inbox. Simply go over to his account and comment there if you need to. Or if you want to check the photos out later, move the message to your Action folder so you can remember to go back and look at them at a later date. Bu there is no law that says you have to respond to every single email you receive.

Unsubscribe to Useless Mailing Lists

We all do it. Over time we visit sites that look interesting and we want more updates and so we sign up for an email newsletter or maybe we make a purchase and we select the little box saying that the company may send us further updates and promotions. While signing up for such junk mail may seem useful at the time, I find that I often end up just endlessly pressing the delete key to remove this junk from my inbox. This is a big waste of time. The fact is every promotional emailing I have ever received has had an "Unsubscribe" link someone in the email. Simply clicking this will remove you from the sender's mailing list and thus freeing you from future Delete key presses. It is that simple. Ask yourself "do I really use this service?" If the answer is no, then unsubscribe away!

Control Spam

Many of the free email services, especially Gmail, have gone the extra mile in reducing the amount of Spam that makes its way to your inbox. Furthermore most corporate email servers are very good at catching spam so that in recent years spam has become almost nonexistent. However some still gets through. If you receive spam, be diligent in marking it as spam in your email client and as you do so your client will grow more and more intelligent when it comes to recognizing spam. If it continues to be a severe problem, then contact your email service provider or network administrator and relay to them the issues you are having. The worst thing you can do is ignore it. It will only be an irritant and will waste your valuable time.

Keep in simple is the motto of this system of email management. Create your simple files and use them in the way they are designed and you will find yourself being able to keep up with action items much more efficiently and you will find your inbox is less cluttered and you will no longer spend hours drudging through junk mail that adds nothing to your life. Remember: keep it simple! Good luck as you fight the good fight of reducing inbox clutter.