On this blog, I’ve gone on ad nauseam about why and how to keep your inbox uncluttered. I’ve even repeated certain posts to provide greater detail. But if all you manage is your incoming email, you might be missing something important.
The inbox bias
Make no mistake: I get more email landing in my inbox than anywhere else. Rules automate the chore of filing that email in appropriate folders when it arrives. I have a rule to put newsletters in their own special folder using just one rule with plenty of criteria and just one action – put the email into the Newsletters folder. (Newsletters end up in a nonurgent reading folder.)
Note: certain web-based email clients, like GMail, work differently. This post applies chiefly to desktop-based email applications.
There’s another reason to keep your inbox uncluttered: when you must keep track of email pertaining to specific projects or clients, the last thing you want to do is to sift through hundreds (thousands?) of emails in your inbox to find them. You can use this setup to have your system file such emails in the right folders automatically.)
The sent items folder matters too
With all this focus on the inbox, people sometimes forget that email builds up elsewhere, too. I’m thinking about the Sent Items folder (although you may find messages to clear out of spam and trash). Emptying your Sent Items folder is just as good a habit as keeping your Inbox empty.
You probably have correspondence in Sent Items that you want to file in certain places. Do you already have rules set up? If you do, try this:
- Select all messages in Sent Items.
- Right-click in the Sent Items folder and, from the menu that appears, click Apply Rules.
You’ll watch a number of your messages disappear into the right folders, presuming you set up rules like this one that don’t rely on who a message is sent or received by.
If messages remain for a project or matter that you have a rule for, modify the rule so that you can apply it to your Sent Items folder. If need be, create a new rule, though I doubt you’ll need a new rule if you already use rules to handle incoming mail.
Once you take these steps, you’ll find the quantity of messages in your Sent Items folder shrinks considerably, so it will take you less time to deal with what’s left.