For better productivity, stop organizing email

(MoneyWatch) Everyone, it seems, spends an inordinate amount of time discussing how you should conquer your inbox to get better organized and more productive. It sounds like common sense -- hundreds of undifferentiated emails in your inbox can't be good for anybody, right? Actually, maybe it's time to stop worrying and love a chaotic inbox.

Recently, Lifehacker wrote (and debunked) seven common productivity myths. The article runs the gamut of the productivity self-help book landscape, from getting up early to get more work done to the Internet is making us stupid to the effectiveness of working from Starbucks. But the one that really got my attention was the one about email and managing your inbox.

Indeed, I've made this very point before in this blog, and Lifehacker agrees: Email programs are sufficiently advanced today that filing and organizing messages just makes them harder to find.

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• Track who reads your Outlook email, attachments
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The point is that any filing system depends upon you being able to remember the taxonomy you've created. The report about the Smith account? Is it in the folder you called Reports, or is it still in the In Progress folder? What about Archived Projects? Your ability to find stuff is only as good as your filing system, and even then, no system is perfect.

On the other hand, if you ignore your impulse to file and just leave mail in your inbox, you can use the instant search tool in Outlook or whatever client you are using to find stuff by typing a unique word or two. Outlook, for example, can quickly retrieve messages that match any search term you enter, and you can easily filter messages by sender or recipient, by date range, and other criteria. Your email strategy should not be about spending time filing messages, but using the appropriate method to find somewthing when you need it.

What are your email strategies? How well do they work for you? Sound off in the comments.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Dvortygirl

[Inspired2b100]

I share a three step process with my clients that help them maintain an inbox zero at all times and remove the need to file emails away. With Google Apps email for business it's easy for follow my program. Goal is to process email as quickly as possible until all email is out of the inbox. You do this by deciding quickly to:
1. Archive - if you've read it and no further action is required
2. Star/Flag - if you have to think about it more than a few seconds in order to respond or have further action
3. Delete - if it hold no value after reading.

There are a few other tricks and if you want to hear them, contact me on Twitter @Sturgeongroup or email me at paul.mcneal[at]sturgeongroupllc[dot]com.

[Stevefoxy]

Because I wanted nothing to do with Outlook, years ago I switched to Google gmail. I never have to delete. When I want to aggregate client e-mails and I never, ever, have difficulty finding what I am looking for by subject, by word, by name, by quirky memory lapses, Google finds it for me. Plus I never have e-mail on my hard drive. Thanks for the tips though. It's hard to challenge truth. Truth is truth, you can't argue with truth. sQs Delray Beach FL