These are great tips! Thanks! Here are a few others that might augment yours nicely:

1) Use To: and CC: lines to differentiate between people who have action items in an email and people for whom this is merely informative: I use this with my team, and my manager uses this as well. I filter mail by whether I’m on the To: line or the CC: line and know which ones I need to act on and which ones to read/review.

2) Change the subject if the thread has changed or if the original subject was too vague, but include the original subject parenthetically: If I’m included on a thread from someone with a subject like “FW: Help, please,??? and a reply from me is needed, I usually change the subject to something clearer, but include the original subject so that it’s clear to all that I’m not starting a completely new thread. I.e. I might change the aforementioned subject to “Samples needed for UK Customer (was RE: Help, please).??? The same thing can be done for threads that have wavered from their original theme, or if forwarding a poorly named email or thread to someone else – i.e. “Pls. review/approve these requests (was FW: Can you do this)???

Thanks again, there are some wonderful tips in here that I think I’ll start working towards today!

David