Mailbox management - a refresher

I love an online quiz... yes I admit it. I recently did this one based on THE 7 DEADLY SINS OF EMAIL. As a long time fan of Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen, the questions were all too familiar. I scored in the 50s... which means more work to be done. It was a good reminder of GTD principles and practices that I need to reinstate into my personal routine when it comes to inbox management. So here’s a few of my favourite tricks to wrestle with the many inboxes in my life.

1. Dedicate time for inbox admin - Yes it’s tempting to keep dipping into the inbox all day. It’s the belief that you can stay on top of it by constantly pruning. Best practice recommends focussed inbox time. I do 30 minutes in the morning and another 30 minutes mid day. What it actually does is protects my time and focus when doing actual work.
2. Deal with emails now or park it for later - There should be a finite number of outcomes for each email: read it and delete; read it and action if it can be done quickly; park the action for later in my calendar or to do list. Easier said than done, I know, but this in theory will keep your inbox manageable while still protecting your time to focus on actual work.
3. Reduce incoming volume - Unsubscribe. There are emails you constantly ignore that come from the same source. Unsubscribe links usually sit at the bottom of marketing emails. Some email apps (like Apple Mail) have a built in Unsubscribe feature that will deal with it for you. And if they still persist, block them.

There is much more you can learn from the book Getting Things Done, I highly recommend it.

What are your own tricks and best practices for managing your inbox?