** Originally Published on www.theentrepreneurnotes.com**
Years ago, I learn to set filters to help me manage my inbox, on those days I was on the over 250 emails daily and honestly was impossible for me to keep up otherwise, I honestly do not had the time to touch any email more than once. I have been keeping my inbox in zero since the end of 2003, I was managing 7 inboxes, and getting inbox zero every 24 to 48 hours.
The trick for me was priority, and learn to filter stuff. At that time I was working on Outlook, today I work on a Mac, but my filter setup is the same, even that I do not have the same volume I use to have, I have learn that filters can save you an incredible amount of time.
I set filter got high priority mails, my boss, my top costumers, emails that I am CCd that do not come from the previous categories, (trust me if the boss or the top costumer CCd me, I want to read it). Each one of this filters move my emails to folders I work first, the rest of the emails keep on the inbox for a review.
After I clean those emails, I continue to moving to the next step, I have filters for ezines and subscriptions, that go to another folder, a low priority one.
After all this pre-clasification is done, the amount of noise get really identify, if it is noise, I just create a rule, to get that email directly in the trash, I do not even try to unsubscribe, in my experience, that imply another set of emails that I am not interested in read, a rule that move it to the trash is more more effective.
This help me get those spam emails, some of them self inflicting spam, but spam at the end of the day, move out my view and allow me to keep with my life, trust me, after I got rid of those, there is no much noise left, the time to set up each filter less than 5 minutes, the improvement in productivity, hours.
Now If I can get my iphone to learn those rules…