photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal

New Folder Structure:

Here are the mail subfolders I have created under my ‘inbox’ and their descriptions. Placing an @symbol in front of the folder name causes it to appear at the top of the screen, so it puts the important folders first

@ Action – emails/items/tasks that require me to do something
@ Read or Review – emails that take me more than two minutes to read
@ Someday Maybe – things I may look at in the future, not right now. For instance training courses I’m interested in.
@ Waiting – emails where I’m waiting for a third party to reply/perform an action etc before I move this email elsewhere.
Current Year – Contains organized sub-folders with each of my current projects. These project folders contain the emails I really need to keep.
Archive (at the end of each year I move the ‘current year’ folder (and it’s subfolders) into the archive and rename it 20XX). I then create a new ‘Current Year’ folder for the new year.

The Rules

Here are the rules I follow in order to process and deal with my emails on a day to day basis:

1. As soon as an email arrives: it is moved into one of the subfolders below the inbox, read or deleted. If the email is going to take more than two minutes to look at I immediately file it into @ Read or Review. No exceptions.

2. I only keep emails I think I will really, really need in the future. These emails are moved into an appropriate project folder under Current Year. This is usually after they have been in the @ Action, @ Read or Review or @ Waiting folders for a time. If I’ve had a ten-email conversation with someone I may only keep one of these messages if I really think I will need it for reference in the future. I used to keep them all. Keeping unnecessary emails clutters up the system and makes it harder for me to find the emails I really need.

3. I delete emails more than I keep them. I used to keep everything in my inbox and sporadically move emails into a project folder or an archive folder. I had so many emails in my inbox I had no idea what I needed to action and things were sometimes lost or forgotten. I kept thousands of messages in my archives that I didn’t even need.

4. I allocate myself blocks of time each day to process the @Action and @Read or Review folders and also check or chase @waiting emails.

How I implemented this system

1. I started with a clean slate: I moved all of my existing inbox emails, folders and subfolders into a folder called ‘old-system’.
2. I created the new folder structure.
3. I started processing new emails using the system immediately.
4. I sorted through my ‘old-system’ folder gradually. I allocated a block of time each day to sort through these old emails. I went through all of the old messages and folders, deciding what I really needed to keep and either moving the messages into the new system or deleting them altogether. It took some time, but I knew I was keeping on top of all my new emails.

Simple as that! This system works well for me. If you can recommend any improvements, please comment below! For non GTD’ers I would recommend you read Getting Things Done, by David Allen.