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How Do You Manage Your Inbox?

I'm dying to hear how others manage the massive amounts of email that we plow through at work on a daily basis. 

I try to strive to be like a former teammate and one of the best bosses I've worked for - John Clariday @ GameStop.  He is an email stud!  His inbox is ALWAYS empty.  He quickly decides at the moment when he reads it if it is worthy to keep or delete.  It's like he magically knows which emails to keep (CYA), file, and delete.

I'm the email pack-rat.  I have an anal-rentitive well organized  folder/subfolder structure, and file messages accordingly.  However, it's the Inbox that I'm having problems with.  I'll clean it out, and within 2 weeks, it's back up to insanely large levels.  This became evident when I purchased a Blackberry 7100t to sync up with my corporate email, contacts, todo list, etc...There was no way I wanted to wait for the sync process to carry over 100+ messages!!!

Here are some ideas that I've noticed from other co-workers/teammates:

  • Inbox View (on a regular basis)
    • Sort By Date (Common)
    • Sort By Conversation (Outlook 2003 Feature - Pretty cool)
    • Sort By Person - I'm not a huge fan of this... I found that response rates were much longer for people who used this method (or they were just ignoring me ;) )  I use it for temporary Inbox clean-up, helps to find and get rid of all the spam (EZines, etc..) quickly.
  • Flagging Messages
    • Red for Immediate (2 hours - End of Business Day)
    • Yellow for 1-2 days ETA
    • Blue for low priority
    • Note:  I tend to use "Flag for Follow Up" more often than using flags
  • Rules Wizard
    • Move messages from accounts to a different folder - Great way to separate multiple accounts in the same folder
    • Move messages where if you are in the CC line to another folder - To me, this would hide messages into a bucket that might just continue to grow

Again, I would LOVE to hear how you guys manage your inbox.  Whichever ideas I use, I'll promise to buy you a beer when you're in Dallas ;)

What works for you?

Posted: Apr 13 2005, 12:08 PM by Scott Dockendorf | with 14 comment(s)
Filed under: ,

Comments

Douglas Reilly said:

I save everything, and then use a good search program (Lookout and/or Copernic) and then use my search skills when I need things. The exception are mail lists, that I redirect to a folder. I just flag for followup...
# April 13, 2005 1:45 PM

Mike McGlumphy said:

I have one GIANT inbox that I search through. I gave up on organizing and categorizing a long time ago. It wasn't worth the time, because in the end I still ended up searching through the subfolders.
# April 13, 2005 2:01 PM

Beevis said:

Read this article on Microsoft.com
http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/manageinfo/email.mspx

I just started reading this book...so far it looks promising.
# April 13, 2005 2:12 PM

Will said:

Rules Rules Rules.
I have 40 or so rules that move mail into heirarchical folders. If I get an email and anticipare getting mail from that person again or if the subject if regular then I'll create or modify a rule. Works great. My Outlook mailbox is currently 250 or so megs with only 20 or so messages in my inbox. If you only move the mail to another folder, the rule executes on the server.
I also set Outlook to auto-archive after 9 months. The nice thing about auto-archive is is keeps the folder structure as it archives.
I also use (and love) Copernic Desktop search.
# April 13, 2005 3:34 PM

Ian Smith said:

Get yourself to a bookshop and buy a copy of "Take back your Life! (Using Microsoft Outlook to get organized and stay organized" by Sally McGhee and published by Microsoft Press ISBN 0-7356-2040-7

She'll have you managing your inbox, your tasklist and your life quickly and efficiently
# April 13, 2005 4:23 PM

Wes Haggard said:

I'm like you where I have a big folder structure that I store my mail in. I have a set of rules for particular mails (like mailing list etc) that move them directly into particular folders. Then what ever mail is left in my inbox I use as a todo list (sort of). Once I respond to a particular email I will file it away into its appropriate folder or I will delete it. My goal is to keep my inbox as empty as possible and I usually keep it fairly empty because I keep the number of message in the inbox down by rule filters and by responding to email asap.
# April 13, 2005 4:33 PM

jayson knight said:

+1 for rules, plus in Outlook 2003, search folders are an incredible way to filter messages into specific categories. I've gotten to the point w/ my folder structure that I can scan it quickly just by scrolling through it and can see what folders have new messages. I also keep most of the folders in threaded view to keep track of conversations.

If an email lands in my inbox, it's either really important (new client contact, etc), or it doesn't matter at all (spam filter didn't catch it). I use Lookout occasionally, usually just to search for stuff in the news emails I get.
# April 13, 2005 6:34 PM

Hakan said:

My Outlook 2003 mail folders setup consists of multiple subfolders in an appropriate hierarchy, such as:

Inbox
+Archive
+Important
Groups
Mailing List A
Mailing List B
Projects
Project A
Project B

Incoming emails are automatically moved to one of these subfolders by using rules.

If you are like me, meaning you get irritated by that bold "unread" message count thingy besides the folder name - just keep your unanswered emails in "unread" state by right clicking and selecting "mark as unread".

Only for messages in Inbox:

For any emails that you are done "processing", move them into a subfolder called "+Archive". Processing an email message might be either one of the following:

- Reading it and replying it
- Reading it and deciding it doesn't require a reply, but worth keeping
- Reading it and deciding it is not worth keeping - in this case just hit the Del key

You can also move any important messages to the "+Important" folder.

The reason that I have a plus sign in front of Archive and Important folders is to make sure they are listed near the top.



# April 13, 2005 7:12 PM

Steve said:

That MS Press stuff from Sally McGhee sounds an awful lot like some of the principles that David Allen (http://www.davidco.com) preaches.

Scoble (http://scoble.weblogs.com/) is a big David Allen fan.

I'm currently reading "Getting Things Done" and it's very interesting.
# April 14, 2005 9:59 AM

Scott Dockendorf said:

Great stuff guys! Thanks for all the tips - I'm going to owe A LOT of people beer - guess I should invest in a keg! :) Keep 'em coming!
# April 14, 2005 12:55 PM

Erik Lane said:

I guess I'm less scientific...Inbox is for items I'm working on, need to reply to, or will be working on. I move them out of my inbox, to an appropriate folder, when I'm done with them. I use the flags for follow up to remind me I need to take action on a message and rules to move messages to other folders that I already know about (subject) or from specific people.

I'm probably alone here but I use my deleted items as my "storage" for items that don't belong anywhere else but not so bad that I delete them forever. I figure if it needs to be kept for reference or something I can always get it out of archive..which is run every 6 weeks.
# April 14, 2005 11:18 PM

jagjit said:

In my inbox there are 1bout 900 mails.

I want to  shift all these to one folder.

What do  I do  take all these 900 inbox mail to folder ??????

Please guide.....................

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