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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

Many of my clients do this and I under­stand why. They want to make sure they do not lose sight of what they still have not fin­ished. But by doing so, they are doing them­selves a dis­ser­vice. Instead of let­ting the inbox be a ​“place for all the emails you have received but still not read”-box, it becomes a ​“here are all the cur­rent tasks I need to remem­ber to do — plus all the new emails that I still have not read and processed”-box.

The inbox becomes more or less a mess, and the per­son who was already stress­ing out over the cease­less inflow of emails will feel even more uncom­fort­able by hav­ing to also keep track of which emails they have begun work­ing on or not, which are urgent, and which have not yet been addressed or tak­en care of at all (since it is not entire­ly sure that they have read and tak­en action on an email only because it is not marked as unread).

More places for the to-dos

In addi­tion to all the tasks rep­re­sent­ed by emails in the inbox, they have a list of all the oth­er things that need to get done and which did not orig­i­nate from emails in an app, on a piece of paper, or some­where else. When they are about to decide what to do next, they take a look at the list, in the cal­en­dar, and in the rather unclear inbox. Sev­er­al places need to be con­sult­ed and it becomes much more dif­fi­cult to pri­or­i­tize than it should be.

Improve the inbox

Make it eas­i­er for your­self. Refine and improve your inbox so that it only con­tains emails you still have not read or done some­thing with. Add what you need to do as a con­se­quence of receiv­ing an email to the place where you keep all your oth­er tasks — your to-do list or cal­en­dar (depend­ing on if it relates to a spe­cif­ic date and time or not) — and save the email some­where else than in your inbox; in one big sub­fold­er, in a fold­er struc­ture, or amongst oth­er infor­ma­tion regard­ing the same topic.

Do this

If this all sounds famil­iar, do the following:

1. Trans­fer all emails that are cur­rent­ly in your inbox which you are com­plete­ly done with some­where else — if so only into one big ​“Archive”-folder. You will not have to see them sev­er­al times a day but can still find an email quick­ly if you should need it.
2. Write a to-do task that defines what the next thing you need to do for every email still in your inbox is. Add these to-do tasks to your to-do list and refer back to the email if you need to find it when work­ing on the task in ques­tion. If you use a dig­i­tal to-do list such as the Tasks-func­tion in Out­look, Microsoft To-Do, or Todoist, most of this can be done automatically.
3. Save the emails you have cre­at­ed to-do tasks for some­where else as well. They no longer need to be left in the inbox for you to not lose sight of them since this is not where you keep track of what to do.
4. Alright then. You have now refined and improved your inbox since it no longer con­tains emails you have either read or already addressed.

Make it clear what’s what

If you do not let the email remain in the inbox until the task is com­plet­ed, you will have few­er places to look through when choos­ing what to do next. Your next task is cho­sen based on how urgent and impor­tant it is, rather than where it hap­pened to be and how it end­ed up on your radar. You no longer have to feel that there are to-do tasks lurk­ing in the inbox, some­where amongst all the oth­er emails just left there, but will have a com­plete overview in your now sin­gle to-do list. Being more orga­nized will give you more peace of mind and a more bal­anced work-life.

What’s your way?

How do you keep your inbox nice and neat? Please write to me and share your thoughts.

(Have you thought about cre­at­ing a struc­ture and rou­tine for your inbox? Feel free to check out my tips on rules and fil­ters make the heavy email-load lighter!)