I will soon start a new job where I expect to receive significantly more emails than I do currently. So far, I haven’t had a system in place, except for marking emails as unread until I respond and occasionally using flags.
I would like to change that practice, now that I have a clean slate. But how do I start managing my inbox?
I use Mac Mail and would like to continue using it. I know how to set up rules and create smart mailboxes etc., but I can’t really see the potential.
Thank you!
I get a lot of email at my job (~200 per day) and to stay on top of the binge I need to separate emails that truly need action from those that I just need to read or can ignore entirely. The filing filing approach doesn’t work for me (even with automated rules) because it’s too easy to miss something when there are many places to check.
Here is what works for me. I use Outlook but other clients may have similar features:
- My inbox is my “to do list” as another commenter said, and all emails come into it. I’ve also disabled the Focused Inbox.
- I use conditional formatting rules to change the appearance of subject lines in the inbox depending on how they are addressed:
- If I am in the To line with other people then the format is standard Outlook formatting with blue text. Unread emails are bolded.
- If I am only in the CC line, the email is colored gray. Unread is still in bolded.
- If I am in the To line alone, then I keep the font color blue but increase the font size so it is BIG and obvious that an email is addressed to me specifically.
- Whenever I am “done” with an email (replied / read / taken action) then I move it out of my inbox into a single folder called Archive. I have a Quick Action set up to mark an email as read and move it to that folder.
- The “group by conversation” feature is a great help: it organized email chains by subject line, making it easy to find related emails. When a new email comes in the entire group pops to the top of my inbox (even emails that were archived), which helps if I’ve missed or forgotten something.
- To find things later, I make extensive use of the search functionality. Many email clients support complex searches to find exactly what you want. For example: “myproject from:Stacy to:Adam hasattachment:true”
I start most days by going through the gray/low priority emails and quickly clicking Archive on the ones that done need attention, then replying to those addressed to me. Throughout the day I only have ~10 emails that stay in the inbox as true “to do”, and below those are any I didn’t finish from the day before.
Good luck on your own email organization journey!
I’ve done this for years, but also:
- anything automated goes straight to specific folders for those categories. Very quickly identify stuff that’s noise and put in rules to move it out of your inbox. Sure some stuff you might need, but anything that’s corporate spam needs automating away.
- use (and create if necessary) the right mail groups so your whole team, project partners, whoever see the right emails and ask people to use them.
- add a VIP rule to highlight emails from the boss, VP, anyone you know you want to read right away
- be clear with people on how to reach you. If you prefer Slack for immediate stuff, tell people. It’s fine to be clear that email is for less immediate consumption, or non-conversational stuff. Slack is far better for collab.
