Discover the Best Way to Organize Your Emails Efficiently

Imagine coming back from a long vacation you took for your birthday. You didn't ask anyone to watch your house while you were away, so your mailbox is stuffed to the brim.

How much of it is bills? Are there any birthday cards from family? You won't know until you start sorting them.

This is similar to how a crowded email inbox feels. It feels overwhelming, and the longer you take to sort it, the worse it gets. Fortunately, there are small steps you can take to manage it.

Read on to learn the best way to organize emails.

Use Folders, Labels, and Categories

Think of a time when you moved to a new house and had boxes and boxes to deal with. They were labeled based on where they were going. One might say "kitchen," the other might say "bedroom."

You can do the same thing with folders, labels, and categories in your email inbox. It makes sorting and searching through them more efficient.

Folders

Email folders go outside of your primary inbox. You can name them after specific projects you're working on, give them names such as:

To-Do
Follow Up
Later

You can even have sub-folders.

This helps clear up the clutter in your main inbox. It also makes it easier to find specific emails when you need them.

Labels

Labels are a Gmail-specific feature that works similarly to folders.

You can use them to sort your emails by:

Topic
Urgency
Project

Labels can even be color-coded. This lets you easily see the type of email you want to find.

Use a Folder System

The number of folders you need is a personal decision. It depends on how many different types of emails you send throughout the day.

It can get tempting to create so many folders that your inbox is just as disorganized as before. Adopting a proven system of just a few is better.

5-Folder Method

The five-folder Method involves choosing five folders based on how urgent they are. You could choose:

Inbox
Today
This Week
This Month
FYI

It helps you prioritize your emails and remember when they need attention.

4-Folder Method

The four-folder Method focuses more on what you plan to do with the emails in each folder. The four folders could be called:

Read
Act
File
Trash

Automate with Rules and Filters

The best way to organize emails is to automate the process, allowing your email program to do it for you.

Set up rules or email filters to manage your messages. They'll be deleted, archived, or sorted based on:

Sender
Subject
Keywords

On Gmail, click the drop-down menu in the search bar. On Outlook, right-click to set up rules for your folders.

It reduces the amount of time you have to spend manually sorting through your emails. It also ensures they all go to the right place the first time.

Delete and Archive

Email organization isn't only about putting emails in a designated area. It's also about getting rid of the ones you no longer need so they don't serve as a form of digital clutter.

There is a difference between deleting and archiving emails, but both are important for decluttering email accounts.

Archiving is similar to moving an email in your inbox to another folder. You can search for it if you ever need to find it again. Setting up your folders or labels for archived emails also makes them easier to find.

Deleted emails are sent to a "deleted items" folder. They'll remain there for a certain amount of time. It's 30 days for Gmail and 14 days for Outlook under the default settings. You can wait or go to your deleted items folder and press "delete forever."

Built-in tools can help make this easier. Outlook has a Clean-Up feature that removes duplicate emails.

Unsubscribe, Block, and Filter

Unwanted email senders are like friends or family who always get you terrible presents on special occasions. The unfortunate thing about them is you can't stop them from doing it without being rude.

You can, however, stop unwanted email senders from sending you emails you don't want. It involves unsubscribing from their email lists, blocking them, or filtering them out.

Unsubscribe

Almost everyone's got subscriptions that they no longer want. Perhaps you entered your email address to receive a free trial of a service or a deal on a product.

It's difficult to organize your inbox effectively if these unwanted emails keep coming in. Fortunately, you can end them.

Most emails from an unwanted subscription have an "unsubscribe" button at the bottom. You'll be taken to a confirmation page. Click another button to confirm you're sure you want to unsubscribe. It's a straightforward and generally foolproof way to cancel unwanted subscriptions.

Also, be careful what you subscribe to in the first place. Think about whether getting regular emails from them is worth it.

Blocking

You can also block emails to reduce mail from unwanted subscriptions and spam.

Gmail lets you open an email from a sender you don't want, click the three dots in the corner, and select Block. Anything they try to send you from then on will go to your spam folder.

Outlook has a similar process. Open the unwanted email. Click on Junk, then Block Sender at the top.

The process for Yahoo Mail is almost identical to Gmail. It's a little different for Yahoo Mail, but it isn't difficult. Open an email and click the sender's address. Then, choose Block This Contact.

Filtering

Filters make it easier to prevent unwanted emails from reaching your inbox in the first place.

Most email platforms allow you to use specific criteria for filtering emails. There are 7.8 billion spam emails sent in the US alone every year. They can go unnoticed, but users have gotten wise to the type of language they use. Perhaps you want to filter out emails with words such as "sales" or "free."

Filters can also help you manage emails efficiently. They can tell a platform where to send emails. Perhaps you want a filter that sends anything from your boss to a folder labeled "important" and anything from your family to a folder named "family."

Check your filters to see if they're working the way you want them to. Recheck who you've blocked and unsubscribed to every so often. The list of unwanted senders getting into your inbox can build back up over time, even if you got it down to zero.

Respond Right Away

Putting off organizing emails leaves you with a cluttered inbox, but so does failing to respond to them.

Don't wait. Do it as soon as you can, focusing on the most urgent ones first.

The sooner you respond, the sooner you can organize it. Responding to every message quickly helps prevent a backlog from developing. It also reduces the stress of having emails sitting in your inbox waiting for you.

Block Out Time for Email Management

According to Sci-Tech Today, employees check their emails approximately 121 times a day. It accounts for about 28% of their workweek.

Others never turn it off. According to a TimeWatch survey, 22% of email users "live in" their email inbox, checking it constantly throughout the day.

Constant attention may seem like the best way to organize emails, but it's not. The better plan is to set aside a few hours in your workweek to manage your inbox. Leave it alone the rest of the time.

This is one of the best email productivity strategies. It'll make you more productive and less stressed.

Get to Inbox Zero

Inbox zero is that moment when you have no emails in your inbox to look at. It's the goal of email organization.

You don't have to have zero unread emails. The idea is that they're all accounted for. You've done something with every email, whether it's:

In a folder
Labeled
Archived
Responded to
Deleted

You'll have to engage in regular maintenance to keep it up. That just means consistently following the best email organization tips so you don't live a life overwhelmed by digital clutter. It's worth the effort because you'll be more productive and less stressed without a huge inbox staring you down.

One Tool Serves as The Best Way to Organize Emails

Looking at a crowded, unorganized inbox can be stressful. Categorizing it with labels and folders helps you keep track of everything. Blocking, unsubscribing, and filtering out unwanted emails while deleting and archiving old ones keeps it manageable. You'll eventually reach inbox zero.

Installing a tool like Mailstrom is the best way to organize emails. We work with most major email programs to help you get to inbox zero securely and quickly.

Malestrom lets you sort your inbox your way. Contact us for a free trial today.