- by Jay Daniells
- Business Tips
A friend who I know appreciates things I share recently asked this on Facebook:
“I have 6100 emails in the inbox of my main business email address. I use Outlook. I want to start the year with a clear inbox (or close to it) and hopefully stay on top of it. There must be a easy quick way to do this.
Does anyone actually keep their email boxes clear? Is this actually possible when one receives so many emails?”
Below was part of my response. In it, I shared what I do which my friend appreciated. I have also chosen to share this here. Perhaps it will assist you too if you’re looking for tips to keep the size of your email inbox under control:
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Every year at the start of January I dump every email still in my inbox for the previous year into a folder in Outlook called “_Unsorted emails for [year]”. I do this on my laptop.
I sometimes do the same thing every 2 – 6 months. Eg. I had a LOT of emails in my inbox by the end of October 2023 due to July to Oct being overly busy. I dumped them all into a “_Unsorted emails for 2023” folder. I find doing this always feels good 🙂
I also use rules in Outlook so certain emails go directly into folders that I also set up with an underscore at the start of their folder name so they appear at the top of my folder stack. I check those folders daily.
I also have a rule setup that sends all messages from team members (sent from our Project Management Software) directly into another folder in Outlook (it’s folder name is the name of the Project Management Software). I then check it many times each day as well. I then delete messages from that folder once they are addressed/ finalised.
I also manually move client emails and emails from suppliers into their relevant folders weekly (and sometimes 2 or 3 times per week, especially emails from specific clients I am currently working for.)
My Facebook account is hooked up to an old Hotmail account that I don’t bother checking at all… unless I need to search for something in it once in a blue moon.
I don’t do ‘personal email’. I asked all my family and extended family 8 years ago not to forward jokes or anything to me anymore. I also asked all my friends and family to no longer ever email me, unless it was business-related (and important)…. or something really serious. I also explained to no longer email my hotmail email and to instead email me at one of my main business email addresses (I gave them the one to use).
Any and all invoices emailed to me by suppliers and team members go straight into another folder called “Unpaid Invoices” so I can go through that folder at any time to see who I need to pay.
There are a few other things I do as well.
I manage 4 business email address accounts in Outlook regularly. I’ll be adding another 1 shortly … and maybe a few more this year.
For each email address, I also have a folder called “Marketing Spam Emails”. Every day (often more than once a day) I move any and all spammy emails I want to keep and any emails from those I am subscribed to into that folder. I can then go into that folder whenever I want to and search by sender or arrange by ‘name’ to find and read emails from specific brands, websites, mailing lists, spammers, etc.
Side note: I typically don’t read many of these type emails when they arrive into my email, unless specific ones really grab my attention, or they are from websites/ businesses I do actually want to read when they arrive in my inbox.
I often move these type of emails into the folder using my phone… in my spare time. I’m a big fan of ‘Exchange email accounts’ — how good is syncing! 🙂
I’m forever sorting emails into folders: at night, lunchtime, morning tea, etc, whenever I get a chance…. but not when I need to work.
Like all of us that have inbox issues, I make sure getting actual work done is my priority.
Like most, I also unsubscribe from any websites/ mailing lists that I really don’t want to keep receiving emails from.
This all helps me keep my inboxes under control.
I also use the search tools in Outlook many times each day to quickly find specific emails.
Side note: At some point, I want an assistant to manage email for me…. using methods Tim Ferriss writes about in his arguably best-known book.