Is your inbox cluttered? Are you always procrastinating in responding to emails? Did you miss your bill due date because your bill was buried somewhere deep inside your inbox with all the new mail piling up? Today almost everybody is dealing with such an email overload. We are receiving way too much email than anyone has time to read or respond to. So, if your inbox is out of control, you may like to get some semblance of order by developing a simple method to process your email and to be more productive. The target should be "Inbox Zero". It implies having no mail in your inbox by the end of each day. What, you say? Am I joking? No....not at all. Read on to understand and apply a simple process to achieve the nirvana state of Inbox Zero. Check out this video for a screencast.
First and the foremost suggestion is to use Labels or Folders in your inbox. You can easily divide your mails into few basic categories. Most inboxes today are cluttered with social networking notifications from sites like Facebook and Twitter. You may create a label "Notifications" for such emails. All your newsletters and promotional messages can go to "Bulk". The mails which you may require later on for a reference like product information or files which you may have emailed to yourselves to have a quick access on the move, may be marked as "Reference". The mails which require you to reply may be labeled as "Respond". Then you would have some mails which call for an action on your part. You may choose to have two labels to organise such mails namely "Act Soon" and "Act Some Day". Then there are mails which you may require to refer multiple times in the next few days like tracking information of a shipment order from an online retailer. Such mails can be filed under "Hold". You may have to set up some more labels depending upon your requirements, like you may have a folder for mails from family and close friends. This was just a general overview and you may like to have your own label names as per your wish. But you should try to keep the labels at the minimum as having lots of them may be counterproductive.
So, what next? Filters, of course. You cannot seriously hope to put labels manually on that mountain load of mails in your inbox. Filters are powerful inbox management tools so better get a grip on them sooner than later. You may easily create filters which automatically sorts out incoming mails and files them under appropriate labels or folders. You may create filters allowing mails from certain addresses or certain subject to be filed under a certain label. That leaves only few mails which you have to file and categorize manually.
Now that you are all setup, get your inbox into some order before you start implementing the new system. Start with diving into that huge pile of mails in your inbox and delete all the mails you may never need. It may be a tough task when you have thousands of mails lying in your inbox collected over the years. But this is a one time effort and if you follow the process as described here you would never need to resort to such Herculean tactic ever again. If you still want a shortcut, then you may manually delete mails from last few months and bunch up the rest of the old mails and put them out of your inbox by deleting it. Do not shudder at the thought of deleting mails as you probably don't need all that old stuff ever again. But if you are still not up to it, you may move them to a new label "Backlog" and then archive all the messages which also takes all of them out of your precious inbox but does not delete them. You can then sort out a few mails everyday at your convenience and thus clearing up the backlog in a few days time. Remember, you can always get to a particular archived message by easily searching your mail. After deleting, labeling or archiving, you are now left with an inbox in a pristine condition called Inbox Zero (More about it here).
From now onwards, it's a matter of following a simple process. It is preferable if you can designate a time, once in a day, for managing your inbox. In that case you may choose to shut down the notifications also unless you are usually receiving mail that cannot wait. Thereafter just follow the "Four Ds of Decision Making" model. For each mail you receive, take a decision according to the following 4D's.
1. Delete it: Trash all that junk mail or promotional stuff you are not interested in.
2. Do it: If you can reply in less than 2 minutes, just do it and get it out of the way. After replying, archive it to clean out the inbox.
3. Delegate it: If somebody else like a colleague or an employee could reply or follow up or do whatever is necessary, just forward it right away to the delegated person and archive it. If you also need to follow the action taken, you may also label it with "Hold".
4. Defer it: If the mail requires along thought out reply or calls for a task to be completed, you may choose to defer it till you have time to respond. Such mails can be filed under "Respond" or "Act Soon" or "Act Some Day" labels.
Voila, you now have a vacuum cleaned empty inbox with all your mail prioritized and categorized. With practice, it would become a second nature and you are going to surprise people with your efficiency. And it was also help in alleviating the stress of the chaotic inbox. Welcome to a more happy and healthy inbox!
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