<aside> 💡 This article is part of a series entitled #29 Organisation for creatives

</aside>

Here’s the golden rule: don’t let your inbox become your To Do list. You need to process your emails and get them out of your inbox and into manageable folders. And don’t use too many folders, it’s a trap. I have the following:

• Live: Any email which has info I may need to access quickly - flight details, student lists and class schedules, tickets for concerts/ shows etc. In truth modern search functionality render this folder pretty much obsolete but I find comfort in having them in one place.
• Read: Any email or newsletter I want to read fully - I open this folder when I have a few minutes and want some entertainment. Basically every time I would have jumped on Facebook, I now read emails in this folder and then archive them. It’s content curation based on choices I’ve actively made rather than what the algorithm serves up.
• Archive: Literally everything else. As mentioned above, search functionality is now so good, I can call up any email I’m looking for in seconds.

So when I go into my inbox this is my process. Skim the email and make a decision:

1. If it’s going to take less than 3 minutes to answer, I’ll answer it and archive the message.
2. If it’s something that’s going to take a long time to read then I’ll send it to the Read folder.
3. If it’s something that’s going to take a long time to respond to I set a reminder for the deadline and add a task to my To Do list.
4. If it’s something I’m going to need soon, I send it to Live.

When my inbox is empty I quit out of my email programme until I’m ready to process again. Most of this I learned from Graham Allcott in How to be a Productivity Ninja. I’m way better on email than I am on text message or Facebook Messenger because I can’t implement this workflow there.

In WhatsApp, I’m better since Katy showed me there’s an archive function that means I can WhatsApp Zero to my heart’s content.