A disorganised inbox is not only a source of inefficiency, but also unnecessary stress. Both Gmail and Outlook have simple customisations to help you to quickly and easily take control of your inbox.
The idea is to keep your inbox to being purely a triage zone. As new emails come in, you immediately make one of the following judgements:
- Full attention
I’m going to act on this immediately, as I read it. After I have, it then becomes one of the following. - Label/categorise as Priority
I can’t stop what I’m doing to act on this immediately, but it does need to go very high up on my priority list. - Label/categorise as Upcoming
I’m going to have to act on this, but it can wait; I can re-evaluate tomorrow. - Label/categorise as Future
I’m now aware of this and at some point I’m going to need this information, but I can’t actually do anything at the moment (e.g. because I am waiting for someone else to act first). - Archive it
No action is required by me, now or in the future, but it is possible I will need to reference it again. - Delete it
This email doesn’t concern me at all, or it is just an automated notification.
Your inbox should therefore never have any unread emails in it, ever! Your All Mail/Archive is where you can find your old emails, and your labelled/categorised emails are displayed nearby, as a chronologically-sorted To Do list that will naturally keep you organised.
Gmail
Gmail allows you to add bespoke “labels” to your emails. It then also has an option to turn on “multiple inboxes”, which displays labelled messages alongside your main inbox.
Note: When you place square brackets around the label name, you ensure that it will be listed at the top of your list of labels.
Outlook
Outlook has “categories” rather than labels, and again you can “sort” your inbox by category, achieving the same as Gmail’s multiple inboxes.
