Streamlining Your Inbox

Do you ever have trouble finding old emails you need to reference? Or keeping up with your inbox? If so, you’ve come to the right place!

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but it bears repeating - I recommend heavy use of the labels or folders function in your email, with nested labels as appropriate. It’s difficult to remember specific words that appear in an email or subject line you are hunting for, but if you have your emails categorized, that immediately narrows down the field of emails you have to sort through. (Fair warning, I use mostly Gmail terminology throughout this post, but most major email hosts will have similar functionalities, maybe just with different names.)

Only keep items in your active inbox that require action on your part. Once you’ve read an email and completed any steps required from you, it should be removed from your inbox, either by labeling and archiving it or moving it to an appropriate folder. They will still be accessible in your email history, but they won’t be in cluttering your inbox and making it difficult to identify the things that need your attention.

Two labels I use frequently are “Pending” and “Tickets/Appts.” I apply the Pending label to emails for which I am waiting for a response. That way I don’t lose track of them and can follow up if I don’t hear back in a reasonable amount of time, but they aren’t sitting in my inbox either. The Tickets label is probably self explanatory - I apply it to any email that has tickets, reservations, or appointment details for upcoming events. This way I don’t have to search through my email for them at the last minute and I also don’t have them sitting in my inbox for potentially months before I need them.

I also set up various filters so that regular marketing emails I get automatically go to labels for Events, Food, and Shopping, rather than cluttering up my inbox. This has the added bonus of decreasing any spending temptation, since you won’t see all of the supposed “deals” immediately.

One final little thing that can help you identify the most important items within your inbox is to use the star or priority functionality to keep more urgent emails at the top of your inbox.

I hope these tips help - if you are looking for more detailed advice for your own situation, don’t hesitate to ask!