Tame Your Wild Inbox With A Few Easy Steps

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The secret to my latest productivity spurt has not been increased amount of caffeine but because of a new pledge to myself to tame my inbox. I thought it would be a lot harder than it was but there was a few principles that I had to keep in mind.

I tried out every Mail program anyone could recommend for OS X and after a few weeks in each I have learnt which app and which systems work.

I started by breaking down my daily influx into statistics (not including Mailing Lists or Spam). On an average day I get a couple of hundred emails.

  • 35% are personal emails. Friends emailing, Facebook messages, etc.
  • 10% are people asking for help or advice.
  • 5% is random mailings. (Not spam, but newsletters from products I use)
  • 45% is Twitter, Dribbble, Facebook Comments or other social notifications.
  • 5% are receipts or invoices.

Out of those, I would generously suggest that 40% warranted a reply and about only 10-15% were time sensitive. So on the assumption I received 200 emails today, 30 need my immediate attention. Chances are 20 of them could be resolved within 3 minutes each too. This is already starting to look more manageable!

What You Need To Recognise

1. Most Emails Aren’t As Time Sensitive You Think

I used to have my software checking for mail every 5 minutes. When something new came in I stopped what I was doing, answered it and got back to what I was doing. I used to feel good for keeping my mailbox somewhat lean but more often than not lots of emails piled on top.
If something is incredibly time-sensitive there is a good chance that whoever sent it will contact you by phone or IM instead. If you get it as an email, then it’s unlikely important and if it is, it’s such a small percentile then it’s not worth checking every email and losing focus to find that one exception to the rule.

2. Emails are a secondary activity

It’s nice to see who’s just followed you on Twitter but if you’re hearing an alert all the time it will break your concentration. It will stop you doing the best work you could be doing. Emails should be a secondary to work, not on parallel.

Could you honestly imagine reading your snail mail the same way you check your email? No, neither could I. You most likely read them at the start of the day or finish your tasks and then read them. One thing at a time. If people want to get ahold of you they will.

3. It’s not rude!

Like me, you are probably worried about offending people if you aren’t quick with your replies. It is not rude to reply to someone half a day later. They are most likely busy and understand. A structured work process makes everything work better. Your mind is not thinking about the UI element you are about to design or the test you are about to make pass. You can focus on the task at hand.

If it’s someone who you want to invest in you, then you should probably be as diligent as possible but I think they can respect that you are just trying to get work done. They will be wanting you to do the same thing.

4. If in doubt, wait.

If you feel you need a break then spend those 5-10 minutes sorting out through your emails. Organise what you can into your folders (I’ll speak more about this later) and reply to any that will take you only a few minutes to reply to. Draft anything that’s taking you too long and if you’re in doubt if it will take you 2 minutes or 5 minutes, wait!

5. Organization

This is in fact one of the most important rules. Have a clean structure to organise your messages into. I have the following:

  • Smart Mailboxes
    • Unread Messages: Default (All unread messages waiting to be organised.)
    • Notifications: All messages from the notification folder and its subfolders.
    • Lists: All the mailing lists I am subscribed to.
  • On My Mac
    • ASAP: Things I should reply to within the day.
    • Waiting: When I’m waiting on another person’s comments before I answer.
    • Saved: Concert tickets, support responses or other things I’ll need later.
    • Important: Things that I should reply to but aren’t as important as ASAP.
    • Notifications
      • Newsletters: All notifications that don’t have a folder.
      • Separate folders for Dribbble, Facebook, Flickr, Google+, LinkedIn, Shoeboxed, Tumblr and Twitter.
    • Reciepts: All invoices and receipts I get. See later for a nice rule I have set for this.
    • Archive: Anything i’ve read in the other folders gets archived.

Tips & Tricks

Remember Asap!

Remember to check ASAP twice or thrice a day to make sure all the messages are cleared out. If after 3 days in a row you are not replying to an email, put it in the Important folder. Check the notifications only once or twice a day.

Less Alerts

Rather than having your emails come in every 5 minutes, put it to every 30 minutes. You will save yourself a little battery life and be less distracted.

Notifications folders

I let Mail catch these for me so that I don’t have to filter them myself. This alone made me a lot more productive.

PLugins

I strongly suggest you buy the Act-On plugin. It’s great for keyboard users to move their emails about. It powers most of the movement I do in Mail.

Reciepts

I have an Act-On rule that really is a great help to my accounting.

On CTRL+SHIFT+9, move the message to the Reciepts folder, forward the message to my Shoeboxed account (through their email) and then Mark as Read.

Mac Os X LION

If you are on Lion, remove the sidebar and put “Unread” and “Notifications” in the bookmark bar. It makes everything a lot cleaner.

Is there any tips you recommend that I haven’t expressed? Let me know! I’d be curious to streamlining my process even more.

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