I like to think of email processing as just extracting actionable items and placing them on my calendar or my lists. The “husks” then get thrown into my Reference folder or the Trash.

Once the right mental software is loaded (i.e. GTD or Zen Habits’ similar Email Zen approach), you just need three email folders to minimise processing time:

Inbox
Reference
Trash

Everything actionable goes onto the calendar or the appropriate list. If you need to keep the email to reply to or forward once you’ve done the action, just throw it into Reference and find it later using instant search. It’ll be no slower than searching visually through your “Pending” or “Action” or “Project 1234″ folders.

The other CRITICAL behaviour is to force yourself to deal with email the first time you open it; in other words, Only Handle It Once (OHIO). I struggled with this for a long time before I allowed myself to create “Reflect on ___’s email and respond”-type actions for the really tricky messages.

Like others here, I’ve tried dozens of email configurations, clients and approaches, and GTD’s simple discipline has proven the most robust and efficient for me.

But I will check out ClearContext. Tx!

Unless you are hard-assed enough to say that certain people/projects/activities are off your plate, and have informed them respectfully that that is so, you will end up handling the mail.

Except for abusive situations (CC-wars etc) I do not recommend doing that.

The true issue here is: what does this e-mail contact mean to me, what action does it require? Until you have determined the answer to those to questions you are guessing rather than deciding.

I recommend using the Getting Things Done (GTD)methodology. It is simple, addresses the real issue, needs no special technology and has, for me, been a lifesaver. Once you get used to the mental discipline it requires it makes e-mail much more rapid and also tends, for all the people I have coached so far, to reduce it’s volume.

The problem I have with the Magazine article is the comments for the non-Outlook user…working for a large company like I do, that is about the size of Cisco, I can tell you without a doubt, the workers would face termination if they put any company-related documents out there in an online word-processing tool. You keep everything well protected within the network only. I am not trying to be overly critical, but either I work for an out of touch company or the article writer may be a little out of touch with corporate security, I donno.

Till then, back to wrestling with my inbox(s).

Outlook is highly configurable and with a few tweaks any user can increase their productivity with up to 50%.

Instead of using folders, look into categorizing emails and using search folders.

Use rules to have newsletters automaticaly archived and categorized.

If you are an advanced user, exploit filters and views.

Outlook is a very strong tool if you look behind the curtains.

Peter