A Simple Trick For Managing Your Inbox
21 Feb
I truly believe that the best way to manage your inbox is to be proactive. Instead of letting email pile up, I recommend “attacking” your inbox by creating a system in which you categorize every email you receive into one of many (when I say many, I mean a few) folders/labels.
The first step is to decide whether or not the email requires action. If the email is actionable, move it into one of two folders: “Today” or “This Week.” With that in mind, try to have an empty “Today” folder by the end of the day, and an empty “This Week” folder by the end of the week.
If an email does not require action, move that email into a general folder. This folder should be glanced at daily, and does not necessarily have to be empty at a certain date or time.
The above is just the beginning of being proactive with email. Every inbox is different and you may find a running theme within your received emails that will inspire you to create more folders. The key is to make sure that your inbox logic is consistent, and to stay lean with the amount of folders/labels you use.
The way I go about tackling email is to reply to the vast majority of emails within 24hrs. Some emails require more thought and/or time and thus can be sent out later. Once I have responded to all appropriate emails, I label them (Gmail). I keep all emails that need to be replied to in my inbox so that with a quick glance I can see how many are in the queue. AJ, you make a great point of “attacking” email. You’ve got to take action or small steps in order to avoid being swamped. Enjoy the blog’s re-design
Ryan, thanks for your input, much appreciated.
I like your point, and that is the method I used to subscribe to. For me, the problem that started to emerge was the fact that I began receiving far too much email. I’m at a point where I receive a couple hundred emails a day, and to respond to all of these emails in a 24 hour period would render me useless in every other aspect of my work life.
Our goals are similar. Your 24 hour rules applies, it’s just that realistically I have to make my time frame one week.
Appreciate the kind words regarding the design as well!
Best,
AJ
I handle probably 70% of my business via email and I have a nice system down. Rules, alerts, and folders. I will read emails marked as “unread” until I take the proper action. I love your idea about filtering them even further into time frames. Right now my email is scalable but my business keeps rapidly expanding. Great little tips AJ.
Thomas, having a system in place is half the battle. It seems like your current system is working out great, congrats. Let me know when you think your email begins to be too much, the time framing idea might apply well!
Best,
AJ
Just curious if you know your brother’s system for email/inbox management? Does he operate with the same ‘Today’ and ‘This Week’ folders as you are suggesting? (Good idea btw)
If Gary really replies to 500-1000 emails a day as he says he does then clearly he has a found a winning formula… one that I (and many others I am sure) would love to see you do a blog post about
Keep on writing!
John
Hey John, thanks for the comment. Gary’s system was / is fairly simple… just read them all. Just getting through it one-by-one. I know things are getting to a point where it is becoming unmanageable for him (thousands a day) and we’re going to start exploring some systems for him – stay tuned
Hi AJ, Just wanted to know which email software do you use?
Using gmail for my personal email and the gmail back-end (google apps) for vaynermedia’s mail.
AJ
Great ideas and I totally agree that you need to be proactive and respond or act quickly to your emails. It can be difficult and time consuming to do that when the actionable emails are lumped together along with the junk, spam and virus emails. Another issue that I see is being able to organize, find and group emails in some coherent manner so that they can be quickly found in the future. Since these messages can usually be grouped by known people, (vendors, consultants, projects, management,…) why not create Private Networks for each where all on-line communication can be maintained. I’ve been developing a site, 3messages.com which can do this. I’d like to know what you think about it and I would appreciate your thoughts.
Matt
Thanks for the insight AJ. I use a similar system myself only I take it just a half-step further. All messages typically go into one of four folders:
1. Action (to do)
2. Archive (to keep)
3. Defer (to read)
4. Trash
For every new message, I place it in the appropriate folder immediately (or label it as the case may be).
First, trash it if possible. If it’s something I need to save but don’t need to act on (a receipt maybe?)… archive it. If it’s something I do need to act on, can I do it later (e.g. this week?) or does it need attention now?
Once I’ve labeled everything, I start with the “Action” label and “attack” that. Then move to the “Defer” label.
Aside from that, I try to avoid labeling things too much. It gets too messy for my taste. Gmail (and Apps) have fantastic search functionality, so if I need to find something, that’s the way to go.
Matt send me an email with more info on 3messages. Thanks for the comment!
RyanTheJenks, thanks for the comment, good stuff!
filters and colored folders in gmail have changed my life. I haven’t decided what this says about my life yet, but it has changed how I feel about email, and made it more usable.