7 Tips to Manage Your Inbox

It's hard to imagine doing business without email. With this handy form of electronic communication, you can exchange correspondence, market products and services, as well as connect with customers instantly. Unfortunately, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. An email inbox full of unread messages can overwhelm any user, whether personal or professional. When you're bombarded by emails, take advantage of these seven important strategies. Learn how to declutter your inbox and become an email Jedi.

Schedule Time for Email

Also referred to as ‘chunking’, the first step to managing your inbox is setting aside the time to do it. Schedule a few periods throughout the day to scan through emails and craft necessary responses.

If you’re busy and can only respond to email during certain windows of the day, keep clients or customers happy by taking a tip from Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, and create an auto-responder along these lines:

"Thank you for your message. I check email at 10am and 4pm daily. I try to respond in a timely manner, but if you need immediate attention, please feel free to give me a call. Thanks again and have a great day."

In his hugely popular book GTD: Getting Things Done, David Allen points out That the art of setting aside time for doing only one specific task – chunking – is more efficient for the cognitive load. “Multitasking is a myth, and there is no such thing. When you think you’re multitasking, you’re only changing between things. This uses up a lot more of our mental energy, whereas doing a task of the same nature until completion, or until a certain point allows for an optimized level of efficacy. This enables longevity of effort and expenditure - which then leads to consistency.”

Prevent Spam

One of the best ways to cut back on unwanted emails is to prevent them from arriving in the first place. After all, prevention is better than cure. Stop the delivery of unsolicited newsletters and promotions by typing the word "unsubscribe" into your email search box. From the list that pops up, determine which messages you can live without and click on the "unsubscribe" icon located at the bottom of the email. For a quicker method, try Unroll.me, a free app that allows you to unsubscribe from undesired newsletters in bulk.

Delete, Delete, Delete

Managing an email inbox sometimes requires a disciplined use of the trash bin. When perusing your email, delete spam and promotional messages first. For emails that don't need a response, consider whether you will act on them in the future. If the answer is no, then delete. Once you've followed these steps, you should have an easier time browsing your remaining messages.

Mark as Unread

If you're like most people, there are always a few emails you hope to return to when you have more time. By marking these emails ‘unread’, you create a handy to-do list for later. If you don't get to these messages by the end of the day, then file them according to the system below. 
 

Get Organized with Folders

A filing cabinet keeps your physical office neat and organized, a virtual filing system helps de-clutter your inbox. Use five simple folders to de-clutter, and free up things pulling away at your attention. Remember the mind comes up with ideas but isn’t effective at storing them. The sooner you externalize, the quicker you internalize. The process of getting it off your mind and into a systematically organized arrangement, actually has the opposite effect of the initial action. It implants it into your ‘working memory’, normally referred to as long-term memory. You’re getting it out of your system, only to have it come back in with permanence.

Inbox

After going through your inbox, the only messages that should remain are those that you plan to attend to today. Otherwise, delete messages or file them into folders.

Action Folder

Emails that demand some type of immediate response or action belong in this folder. Aim to have the action folder empty at the end of the week.

Waiting Folder

This folder contains emails that relate to required action from other people. For example, clients, customers or co-workers. For optimal organization, review this file every few days.

A-to-Z Folder

Important messages that you need for reference belong in this folder. Keeping it alphabetized ensures quick retrieval. When messages become less important or are no longer needed, delete or archive them.

Archive Folder

This type of folder is for those types of messages not requiring immediate action but might come in handy at some point in the future. Examples of these are receipts, confirmations and meeting summaries. Store these emails in an archive folder, and make sure to review them monthly.

Acknowledge Receipt

When you receive an email that requires a response that you don't have time for, always acknowledge its receipt with a message to the sender that you will be in touch soon. This shows consideration and prevents you from receiving subsequent follow-up emails from the sender.
 

Take Sensitive Conversations Offline

Because subtext often gets lost in an email, sending messages of a sensitive nature can create confusion and generate more additions to your inbox than necessary. Help prevent controversy and save time by conducting sensitive conversations over the phone or in person. This is also a respect to someone’s deserved confidentiality.

Do you have a love-hate relationship with your email inbox? Make your work life more manageable by following one or more of these strategies and share extra tips with us on Twitter.