Help me tame my inbox please !

[Shinyandnew2022]

I have never been very good at filing emails and have never even aspired to being an empty inbox type - I let everything just sit there and use search to find things !

This is fine up to a point but now I need to get it back under control as our security policy states I shouldn't have personal data in my inbox for too long .

I have no idea where to start as obviously I can't reread everything and even if I sort for attachments it's still going to be a big task !

Anyone got a methodical but not too arduous approach I can use ?

It's feeling a bit overwhelming and I keep putting it off.
TIA

It completely depends on what kind of work you do. Is it the kind of work where once a certain period of time has passed you won't need it anymore?

Or could you just file it into months or years if you've been there a while then just set up a new folder structure for the last 6 weeks or so?

Are they all internal emails ? Can you have a folder per department? Or if external, per company ? Hard to say without a bit more info .

I used to try to be very organised and use lots of folders for projects and people but it actually became more complicated. Now I have:

• inbox
• action completed
• completed - contains PII

Everything lives in the inbox till it's been read and actioned, then it goes into one of the other 2 folders.

I use search to find what I need.

This is what I do

I file by person and topic for my inbox folders and that's works quite well for me

I am a solicitor and come in before 9 am to about 70-ish new emails every morning.

I delete everything that has nothing to do with me. New covid policy for one of our northern offices? Not interested. Office round robin about a farewell for someone? Don;t care.

Then I scan everything else and either file in accordance with their need. i take note of any dates and deadlines but usually e-mails are sent by someone who wants to try and prove they are on top of their work but has no intrinsic use to me.

By the time I have done that i am usually down to about a minimum of e-mails in the morning. I then go down from the bottom up (so according to the time they are sent) and I either deal with them there and then or put them into a 'to be dealt with' folder.

I start around 8 am and have my phone off until 9 am. By 9 am I have a fairly good idea what is happening or meant to happen. i review e-mails from 11.45 until lunch at 1 the agin turn my phone off (I eat at my deak) and do what is neccessary. i then review e-mails again around 4.30 .

That means I am usually more or less on top of it, and anything urgent- they can ring me.

This is very interesting thanks for replies - I see it's not a generic question at all there are more options than I considered !!
Perhaps the issue is how I organise myself - I manage people , clients and some internal projects .
I do have folders set up but find if I move things over I find it harder to locate
Them and I do refer back often.
Still thinking.

Love this !