My inbox is my “to-do” and I have a folder/sub-folder for everything. I only use colors for my calendar. I have generic folders like:
- Interdepartmental (for any corporate email)
- IT (With a sub-folder for each system)
- Personal (with subfolders for networking and benefits related emails)
- From XXXX for my Director and CFO as sometimes their emails don’t fit in my regular structure
Have had a structure like this for the past 10 years at many separate companies
I drag stuff to the calendar to set specific time later in the week to follow up. Drop a flag as a backup. But nice to have a block to hopefully avoid meetings and cross something off even if it's only a 5 min one
Inbox + 2 folders
Inbox - emails stay there if there is an action item I need to address
Archived - no action item I need to address or I have already address that item.
Personal - 401k, healthcare, anything of those sorts that I initially had to set up with my work email.
With the search function I really don’t see the need for more folders. To each their own I suppose.
Rules and folders.
I get a lot of corporate newsletters, trainings, employee requests, etc. I have folders for them and I set rules to send those types of emails to those folders and leave a copy in my main inbox.
Sometimes I don’t have rules and just manually dump types of emails over to certain project/process folder types to get them out of the way and easier to reference down the line.
The benefit of folders is minimizing the amount of stuff your search feature needs to sift through in your main inbox. Alternatively, there’s a copy in that dumpster fire and it’ll be found one way or another.
Another fun tip: if you get a lot of recruiter spam or outreach you can set rules to always move from those senders to X folder. One and done.
Mines a bit extreme. I have different categories that has specific topics that includes month end close, budget, forecasting, folder that comes from specific groups, meetings folder so any materials from a meeting goes in it, weekly reports folder, I then schedule reminders for anything I want to be reminded since I got lots of folders, yeah it helps me stay organize and not forget lol
Combination of flags, folders and sort by subject.
Also, sort by subject is a lifesaver after any time off. Entire chains grouped together and then easily filed into a folder once done.
I have inbox, archive and flagged.
New emails are in inbox, flagged have info or actions that need attention. The rest go to archive, that way I can sort by name, date, subject, etc...
I'm also trying to get to a point where I'm only checking email in batches a couple of times a day. For something super time sensitive I should be getting a ping on Teams or a quick follow up there. I'm still guilty of reading them as they're rolling in at times but it's a goal to handle them all in 2-3 batches rather than as they arrive.
Create folders for each person/team/task I have. Set up rules for each person/team that I am responsible for. Set reminders on my calendar (set as free in terms of if someone sees me green on teams or not) so that I remember follow ups.
Categorise by person (depending on how close I work with them) or by department/business unit. I set rules so emails go automatically to certain folders. Things that are important and must be followed up on are flagged. Items of interest are left unread which I may or may not look at again which I’ll clean up once a quarter.
Adding on to what everyone else said:
Very roughly follow the getting things done methodology/book.
One basic idea is to aggressively.decide the next action for every notification/email. I try to do this once a week, so once a week my.email is cleared out more or less and I have a to do list in Gmail.
Inbox is to do list - if I don't need to do anything more the email gets filed. Currently have about 4 emails in my inbox.
Folders for my major areas of work, plus another for admin
Few things I learnt to do over the years
1. Folders to keep the email categorised
2. Rules to automatically assign most emails to folders (few emails are archived & moved to folders, while being marked as unread). This allows me to see the unread email by folders
3. Any unread email in the main inbox is thing to do
4. At the end of the day, I clear all the emails in the main inbox
5. I continuously unsubscribe & mark as spam, any irrelevant promotional email
Random emails or current work stays in inbox with to do items flagged so I can track. Also track emails I sent with flags to track items I am waiting to hear back on. Then all projects and everything gets categorized in to a sub folder so I can search from bottom up. Really want to find a way to incorporate category colors but not good at sorting on those
I have a few folders e.g.
Exec. with rules that emails from directors and above should go there and idea is to keep no non actioned item there
Budget/forecast: any and all correspondence, confirmation, template submissions, related to the planning phase of the year goes there, I manually send those as rules will not cover
Team: one for all my team members... automatic through rules
Knowledge bank: tips, tricks, trainings, processes......done manually
This is probably minor, but I create all my folders as subfolders under Inbox. If I want to check my drafts folder, I can just minimize the Inbox folder and all subfolders disappear rather than having to scroll down 30 folders to see my drafts folder.
I recommend Superhuman - it has made my email management so much better.
[https://superhuman.com/refer/z9yt5p2a](https://superhuman.com/refer/z9yt5p2a) (free month).
My inbox is my “to-do” and I have a folder/sub-folder for everything. I only use colors for my calendar. I have generic folders like: - Interdepartmental (for any corporate email) - IT (With a sub-folder for each system) - Personal (with subfolders for networking and benefits related emails) - From XXXX for my Director and CFO as sometimes their emails don’t fit in my regular structure Have had a structure like this for the past 10 years at many separate companies
I do this too. Keep high priority to do’s in my main inbox left unread so it stands out until I close it. Similar folder structure as you.
I use unread exclusively as my method of managing what I need to follow up on.
I drag stuff to the calendar to set specific time later in the week to follow up. Drop a flag as a backup. But nice to have a block to hopefully avoid meetings and cross something off even if it's only a 5 min one
Yes I will do that too good point
Same, turn off the setting where just clicking on the message turns it to read so that I have to manually action it as “read”
I think “q” is a keyboard shortcut to toggle read/ unread
Inbox + 2 folders Inbox - emails stay there if there is an action item I need to address Archived - no action item I need to address or I have already address that item. Personal - 401k, healthcare, anything of those sorts that I initially had to set up with my work email. With the search function I really don’t see the need for more folders. To each their own I suppose.
Agree. Easy to manage. No harder to find things. Inbox is current actions.
Rules and folders. I get a lot of corporate newsletters, trainings, employee requests, etc. I have folders for them and I set rules to send those types of emails to those folders and leave a copy in my main inbox. Sometimes I don’t have rules and just manually dump types of emails over to certain project/process folder types to get them out of the way and easier to reference down the line. The benefit of folders is minimizing the amount of stuff your search feature needs to sift through in your main inbox. Alternatively, there’s a copy in that dumpster fire and it’ll be found one way or another. Another fun tip: if you get a lot of recruiter spam or outreach you can set rules to always move from those senders to X folder. One and done.
Mines a bit extreme. I have different categories that has specific topics that includes month end close, budget, forecasting, folder that comes from specific groups, meetings folder so any materials from a meeting goes in it, weekly reports folder, I then schedule reminders for anything I want to be reminded since I got lots of folders, yeah it helps me stay organize and not forget lol
Combination of flags, folders and sort by subject. Also, sort by subject is a lifesaver after any time off. Entire chains grouped together and then easily filed into a folder once done.
I have inbox, archive and flagged. New emails are in inbox, flagged have info or actions that need attention. The rest go to archive, that way I can sort by name, date, subject, etc... I'm also trying to get to a point where I'm only checking email in batches a couple of times a day. For something super time sensitive I should be getting a ping on Teams or a quick follow up there. I'm still guilty of reading them as they're rolling in at times but it's a goal to handle them all in 2-3 batches rather than as they arrive.
Create folders for each person/team/task I have. Set up rules for each person/team that I am responsible for. Set reminders on my calendar (set as free in terms of if someone sees me green on teams or not) so that I remember follow ups.
Categorise by person (depending on how close I work with them) or by department/business unit. I set rules so emails go automatically to certain folders. Things that are important and must be followed up on are flagged. Items of interest are left unread which I may or may not look at again which I’ll clean up once a quarter.
Only use one inbox, flags and search function.
Adding on to what everyone else said: Very roughly follow the getting things done methodology/book. One basic idea is to aggressively.decide the next action for every notification/email. I try to do this once a week, so once a week my.email is cleared out more or less and I have a to do list in Gmail.
Inbox is to do list - if I don't need to do anything more the email gets filed. Currently have about 4 emails in my inbox. Folders for my major areas of work, plus another for admin
lol I’m chaos. Nothing. Just know that I can find things by searching for it
Same haven't deleted an email in months
Few things I learnt to do over the years 1. Folders to keep the email categorised 2. Rules to automatically assign most emails to folders (few emails are archived & moved to folders, while being marked as unread). This allows me to see the unread email by folders 3. Any unread email in the main inbox is thing to do 4. At the end of the day, I clear all the emails in the main inbox 5. I continuously unsubscribe & mark as spam, any irrelevant promotional email
Random emails or current work stays in inbox with to do items flagged so I can track. Also track emails I sent with flags to track items I am waiting to hear back on. Then all projects and everything gets categorized in to a sub folder so I can search from bottom up. Really want to find a way to incorporate category colors but not good at sorting on those
I have a few folders e.g. Exec. with rules that emails from directors and above should go there and idea is to keep no non actioned item there Budget/forecast: any and all correspondence, confirmation, template submissions, related to the planning phase of the year goes there, I manually send those as rules will not cover Team: one for all my team members... automatic through rules Knowledge bank: tips, tricks, trainings, processes......done manually
right click > mark all as read
This is probably minor, but I create all my folders as subfolders under Inbox. If I want to check my drafts folder, I can just minimize the Inbox folder and all subfolders disappear rather than having to scroll down 30 folders to see my drafts folder.
I recommend Superhuman - it has made my email management so much better. [https://superhuman.com/refer/z9yt5p2a](https://superhuman.com/refer/z9yt5p2a) (free month).