Tips for keeping a tidy Inbox

Question

My inbox is like big dumpster of emails and lately, it’s been bothering me that it takes a long time to find stuff.

What do you guys do to keep your inboxes organized? Looking for some tips and tricks beyond some common sense stuff.

Thanks!

Rover-S · Accepted Answer

For every email you get, apply the following rules:
1. Respond if it takes less than 2 minutes or is super urgent -> then archive
2. Takes more than 2 minutes, but not urgent: drag and drop into your agenda -> archive the email
3. No response required: archive if you will need it in the future or delete

For emails you send out for which you expect a response: put yourself in BCC and make a separate folder for those emails. Check daily if you received a response.

NuclearPenguins · Answer

I'm going to go against the grain here - I never auto filter except for daily / weekly update emails. Everything else I have go into my inbox and then I file as needed. Primarily had folders by deal, and then subfolders for admin, model-related, buyer outreach, marketing materials related, etc.

Find not auto filtering forces me to read things / deal with them quickly. I use my inbox as an outstanding items folder, so until it's out of my inbox that means there's an action item for that. Had a "Random Projects" folder by year as well.

Excelling · Answer

First, make a "News" or "Read Later" email inbox and as those times of emails come in make a rule to always move "from XXX Sender" into that folder. I find that take a lot of emails out of hitting the direct Inbox which is nice.

Then, as others have said, make a ton of different deal folders & sub folder as necessary so that old projects have a home.

This might be controversial, but then I normally have one or two current folders that start with an "@" so that I can move my most important few projects out of my inbox and to the top of my email folders.

Pro Forma · Answer

I use "Conversation" mode in my Outlook. This groups all emails in a specific chain together so you can see every email in one spot instead of having to hunt for different branches of the same thread. It's helpful to me because I can quickly reference old emails with attachments or double check that certain emails were forwarded / responded to when I get frantic emails from partners or 3rd parties asking for updates on different workstreams.

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Tips for keeping a tidy Inbox

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Tips for keeping a tidy Inbox

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