Inbox Management (in Outlook)

Question

I've gone back and forth between having an organized inbox and having an inbox with absolutely everything I've received in it.

Would you recommend leaving everything in an inbox, or organize it? If you organize it, is there any method to your madness or possibly an Outlook (2003) plug-in to aid in this task?

For what it's worth, I feel way more productive with everything in my inbox, grouped by date. I feel like a spend way more time doing inbox management any other way.

Answer 1

I'm going with the Microsoft way;

• Delete it
• Defer it
• Delegate it
• Do it

It works for me great.
You can read about it at http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/manageinfo/email.mspx.

Answer 2

I switched to gMail and have never been happier.

You could also try using a tags plugin like http://www.taglocity.com/index.html

Answer 3

I would recommend following the inbox zero approach advocated by 43 folders. Joel Spolsky apparently uses it and a lot of people feel it's a great way of decluttering and organising your email life :-).

Answer 4

The best place to start with getting control of your email is definitely Merlin Mann's excellent Inbox Zero series. In particular his Google Tech Talk video is a great talk.

Answer 5

If you don't want to actually clear out your inbox, you could use a good search utility like Google Desktop, Yahoo Desktop Search (is that what it's called) or my current favorite, Xobni.
With these tools you don't have to worry about where you put the mails you saved. Just save them all and let the tools find it.

Answer 6

Keep to the ideal of inbox zero in the actual inbox, then employ a decent search engine (Google Desktop or Xobni for example).

I have a handful of project- or filter-specific folders (e.g. for system generated status messages that go to a mailing list), but generally all archived email is dumped in one folder.

In Outlook 2007 categories (which can approach the usefulness of tags) do add a potentially useful dimension.

Answer 7

I use message flags for my "action folders" and shunt everything into one big Archive folder after I process it (use the Ctrl+Shift+V shortcut to do this). As an example, I might flag a received message with a red flag (reply), a blue flag (pending, meaning I have to do something about it first), or maybe a green flag (reference). I then have search folders for each of my flag colors.

This flagging/search folder method is explained fairly well in this blog post.

I've also implemented a Gmail-like conversation view search folder which has been pretty handy.

Answer 8

We've invested in a few licenses of Simply File for our employees. Works a treat at managing your inbox - it learns (don't ask me how, but it is very good) how to file things for you and does it automatically.

I was sceptical about it at first, until I tried it then I was a convert.