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Now that you have decreased the amount of email you receive. (You did read my previous post on decreasing email, right?) You need to organize the mail that’s left. Easy right? Just create a bunch of folders/Labels and have filters do all the work. Fortunately, it is much simpler than that.

Before beginning I want to state that not all email program use “folders”  some use “labels”.  Really, in the end they are the same;  A way to segment your emails.  For the rest of this article I will use the term “folder” as I feel most people are used to the folder concept and terminology.  But feel free to interchange the word folder for labels if you are using an email system based on labels.  My system will still work.

You only need four folders. Your “Inbox” of course, a folder called “Archive”, a folder called “Follow Up”, and a folder called “Hold”. You may have seen this method described many places on the web, with slight adaptations to each one. I am going to go over the method I use. Obviously you can make adjustments to fit your computing style.

1. Inbox – Nothing stays in the Inbox. This is simply where your email arrives so you can process it and get rid of it. Every time you close your email program this folder shall be empty. Everything that arrives in it should be deleted, replied to, filed or archived. No if, ands, or buts. Say to yourself “My Inbox is my happy place and my happy place is clean.” Repeat that to yourself until it becomes ingrained in your email habits. I will show you how to clean your inbox, through out this post.
2. Follow Up – All email that you need to follow up on or you need a little more time to respond to should go from your inbox into the follow up folder. Only put email that you know you will get to soon in this folder. If you don’t think you will get to it today or the next day, do not put it in this folder.
3. Hold – This folder is just like the Follow Up but, it is for the email that needs a lot more time to respond to. Things you may get to in a week, but you just can’t do now.
4. Archive – When an email has been responded to, the task completed, or the information retained, place it in this folder. You should rarely have to look at the emails in this folder, because the emails in it have already been looked at and taken care of. This folder is just a place to keep those emails, just in case. This folder will get huge. That’s OK. Today’s email programs can search these messages in not time at all. Let the computer do the work for you. Some email programs even allow tagging and other helpful tools to sort through the archive when you need it. Even still don’t worry about it. It will probably be a rare occurrence that you will need to find anything in this folder anyways.

How to Quickly Clean Out Your Inbox.

1. Scan your inbox, and delete any obvious Spam that may not have been picked up by your Spam filter.
2. Respond to emails that can be answered quickly. “What time is the meeting today?” is a good example of one of those emails. Since it has no important information in it delete it once you have responded. If it does have some important information you may need one day then put it in the Archive.
3. If the email is giving you a task, put the task in your to do list. Then either delete it or put it in follow up if you will need to refer or respond to it, when the task is complete. Delete/Archive it from your Follow Up once you have completed the task and/or responded.
4. If the email is simply asking for a response and the response takes more than 60 seconds to type, put it in your Follow Up folder.
5. If the email is not important, but you would still like to read it when you have time put it in your Hold folder. This may include jokes, or stories about peoples weekends, or anything that may distract you from your goals, but you do enjoy reading. Otherwise Delete it.
6. Emails that need action later can also be put in your Hold folder. Leave it there until it is time to put it in your Follow Up folder
7. If you can not respond to the email because you are waiting on more information and it will take more than a couple of days, put it in the Hold folder.
8. Do not close your email until Every message in your inbox has been processed in the manner listed above, once your inbox is empty you may began responding to the other emails in the other folders.

A few tips for those of you that are trying to organize an Inbox that has months or even years worth of emails.

1. Make a folder called DMZ and put all the email in your inbox into it.

you then have two options:

1. Don’t organize it. It is all there just use the search feature if you want to find something.
2. Organize a little bit at a time, set a goal for yourself. Every time you open your email program you will organize 10 emails from your DMZ folder. Eventually you will be done.

image by http://www.flickr.com/photos/xverges/

The most common abuse of modern technology is email. Most people do not know how to properly manage their emails. Have you missed an email because it was lost in with a bunch of crap email.  I don’t just mean the normal spam for male enhancement pills, and emails from Nigerian princes needing your help. What about the jokes that your co-worker sends to you hourly or a link to that video with the cutest little kitten your aunt keeps sending.  All these emails keep you from the important email.

It is hard enough to stay in control of your email without having non-informative and useless email cluttering your box and your mind.

In this post we are going to talk about reducing the flow of email into your inbox.

Step 1.
Fight Spam

If you haven’t already , turn on your spam filter. Most email programs and web-based email services offer spam-filtering. Do yourself a favor and use it. If the program or service you use doesn’t offer spam filtering than get one that does. I personally recommend the Thunderbird email client, I absolutely love it.  It’s simple, fast and expandable via plug-ins.  Most email programs have spam filtering built in, so if you are not prepared to switch email clients, not to worry, just learn to use yours more effectively.

Now you may be concerned about missing important emails because your spam filter caught it. My advice to you is “Oh, well.”. It isn’t worth your sanity to receive every piece of email that is sent to you. I know this sounds drastic, but it’s not. If the email was important the person will email you again, call, and even come see you in person to make sure you get that important info. You will not lose your job, you are not going to lose your house, and you won’t lose your friends, so just relax and let the spam filter do it’s job.

Step 2.
Don’t write as much email

One way to cut down on email is to send less of it. Use email if the message you need to send has a lot of details and the person receiving may need a copy to remember them all. Otherwise use other communication tools to get what you need. Messenger programs are great for “Quick questions”, phones are great if you need to gauge the persons tone, and of course getting up from your desk and walking to your co-worker gives you a little exercise, a much needed break from your computer screen, and some socializing.  Studies have shown that for every email you send you will get 3 emails back.  Think about that when deciding if email is the best way to communicate.

Step 3.
Opt out

Whenever you give out your email address make it a habit to opt-out of any newsletters, promotions, or anything else they offer to do to your email. I use Bugmenot.com to login to sites that seem to have registration for no reason. This site can give you already registered usernames and passwords for a lot of websites, so you don’t have to give up your information.

For those of you more technically inclined, I create email aliases on my web server and when I sign up for something like Netflix I will use netflix@andrebergeron.com as my email. That address forwards to my actual email, so if Netflix ever starts sending me spam, I will know it was them and I can simply create a new alias. And my actual email stays safe.

If you are a member of a social networking site, turn off the email notifications. Social networking sites usually have some way of notifying you of anything new when you login, so why bother receiving an email.