Tip Tuesday: Email Triage

If you took any time off over the holidays, the most dreaded task upon returning to work is likely wading through your inbox. We get it! Here are a few quick tips for triaging your email.

I’m just not that into you. 

If I have a big backlog of email, one of the first things I like to do is sort by sender. This is a quick, easy way to weed out the unimportant. Let’s face it, some senders are just more important than others. All those marketing emails, newsletters, and social networking site updates aren’t critical. Moreover, they clutter up your inbox increasing the odds you will miss something that is critical (like that note from your boss requiring a response). Even if you love getting your Pottery Barn sale notices and seeing who has updated their LinkedIn profile, there’s more where those came from. DELETE.

One day at a time. Outlook allows you to expand and collapse your inbox by day, week, and month. I collapse all but one day and focus on working my way through one day at a time. Quickly decide what needs action, and what needs to be archived, and mostly what needs to be deleted. These are your only choices. This should go faster as you go back in time. The shelf life of an actionable email is pretty short. (Anyone who really needs to hear back from you will email you again.) Visually removing the clutter from your inbox will lower your blood pressure and allow you to focus on tending to the most important items in a calmer, more disciplined way. To quote Merlin Mann: “Every email you read, re-read, and re-re-re-re-re-read as it sits in that big dumb pile is actually incurring mental debt on your behalf. The interest you pay on email you're reluctant to deal with is compounded every day and, in all likelihood, it's what's led you to feeling like such a useless slacker today."

Don’t look back. 

It’s helpful to remember that just because you hit the DELETE button, that doesn’t means that precious email is really gone yet. It’s just gone to a nice farm in the country the trash bin. Have you ever dug through the trash for something you hastily or inadvertently threw away? Right. You have a grace period between DELETE and emptying your inbox trash folder (which you definitely need to do regularly). Does the thought of deleting with abandon still make you uncomfortable? I understand. That’s why they make archive folders. If you’ve determined you aren’t going to actually do anything with that email, but you’re too chicken to delete it, throw it in your junk drawer archive folder. And don’t spend a lot of time organizing a filing system for your junk. The search function works wonders if ever you decide you need to find something again, and the more complicated your system of filing, the more folders you have to search. 

What tricks do you have for getting a handle on your post holiday/vacation email?