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Neatorama on sustainable email fu

Submitted by Merlin on July 10, 2007 - 5:29am.

Rule the Web (and Rule Your Email Inbox!)

Alex from the always-swell Neatorama has written up the bullets on his preferred method for keeping an email inbox at zero.

4. Have a Simple Filing System
Don’t overthink this: a complex folder with subfolder system is not what you need to remain organized. Obviously, your particular needs will dictate how many folders you have … but in my experience, you rarely, if ever, need subfolders.

5. Have a Follow Up Folder There will be times that I need to research an answer to a particular email or do something before I can reply. I let these emails sit in my inbox for a maximum of 1 day (gasp!), then they get put into a Follow Up Folder if I haven’t gotten around to them - and then I add an entry in my to-do list.

Good tips, and my only (seemingly omnipresent) comment is to underscore that need to empty all your baskets regularly. Hence, one benefit of keeping your email storage and action structure light is that you won’t have to dash around to multiple places to see what’s on your plate.

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I like to keep my...

Submitted by Ben (not verified) on July 10, 2007 - 6:25am.

I like to keep my email inbox empty. I have simple filing system as described. Everything gets filed immediately into folders that match up with my project list. There’s a ‘ZZcold’ folder for completed projects and few more administrative buckets.

Follow up items get flagged then filed like any other message. There’s a simple smart mailbox of all flagged items for easy access. The action also gets quick added to OmniFocus.

For messages that need action but not filing, they are flagged and thrown into the ‘111temp’folder.

I also BCC myself on all messages, and items that need a response go into the ‘111waiting’ folder where they sit until my weekly review.

Here’s a picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lfb/769658603/