Clear the Inbox Clutter
Because email has replaced not only written correspondence but phone calls, in many cases, your inbox can quickly get out of control. Here are my top five tips to keep things in check:
- Your inbox is your to-do list.
- Remove spam from your inbox. Because spam has nothing to do with your business nor your to-do list, just get it out of there. There are many good anti-spam software packages out there now, and your company should have one.
- Use filters. Make folders. If you are on an email list that is purely informational, i.e. where messages never turn into to-do items, use rules/filters to move the those messages to a subfolder. You can read them at your leisure without confusing those items with those that really matter.
- Get off of as many email lists as you can.
- Clean out your inbox. Move messages out of your inbox when you no longer need to take read, respond to, or act upon a message. This may seem like a given to some, but it's a quick tip that many don't follow. Create separate folders for different clients, or simply make on new "Done" folder for those items to which you have already tended.
