Inbox: 0 - Follow Up: 65 - Hold: 26 - Sent: 1225 - Archive: 2272

As a typical north American worker I use e-mail a lot as part of my work. Now if I worked for myself I would be using Google Apps for your domain and enjoying the productivity improving gmail interface, but instead I work for the government, and we use outlook & exchange. blah.

So a while back I noticed that I had several hundred e-mails in my inbox, and I was having a hard time finding past e-mails I needed for reference. I was trying to use categories and search folders to create a gmail like tagging system but I hit the limit of search folders allowed and the adding of categories in outlook is a pain and definitely not a replacement to gmails labels.

I went looking for a better system and found this post by lifehacker: Empty Your Inbox with the Trusted Trio. The article basically states that you try using a three folder organization system: follow-up, hold, and archive, and keep your inbox empty.

Today I emptied my inbox. It’s actually a great feeling.

Now I just need to bring that follow-up folder down to a more manageable level.