I will soon start a new job where I expect to receive significantly more emails than I do currently. So far, I haven’t had a system in place, except for marking emails as unread until I respond and occasionally using flags.
I would like to change that practice, now that I have a clean slate. But how do I start managing my inbox?
I use Mac Mail and would like to continue using it. I know how to set up rules and create smart mailboxes etc., but I can’t really see the potential.
Thank you!
David Allen’s book Getting Things Done has a great flowchart that you should be able to find in google (first box is “stuff”). You can also check out the Building a Second Brain’s PARA concept (projects, areas, resources, archive iirc) which I just started to implement with good results. I prefer to have everything sorted as much as possible and only have the inbox open for reminders or immediate action items. I also use categories (in outlook) to color code what is urgent or not among other things. If you have specific questions let me know, it’s so nice to have less than 20 emails in your inbox at a time.