So I am curious to know if you guys have tips and tricks that help you or have helped you to get into the habit of cleaning out frequently and effectively.
I've spent the past several months nowhere near inbox zero on e-mails. I really needed to get back to it so what I did was work on my systems.
The problem was that having waiting for and action support folders in my e-mail were just places to dump stuff and avoid fully processing it. So I revamped how I handle email. Now my action support folder is ONLY for comments and responses to SW bugs I have reported.
When I process email I make sure that I fully decide what I have to do at that time with each message. I start at the top and process each one individually.
If I can, I read it and delete it, my daily email comics for example, the obvious spam or info I can read but do not need to keep then I do that and delete the message. While I have a spam checker system in place I routinely get good messages flagged as spam per week, usually 1-2 per day, no matter how I train it. Since they come from unknown senders a white list won't work. So I have to review everything that comes in, all 250-500 or so messages a day. My email inputs vary widely with no observable schedule.
If it's something to be reminded of at a future time I move a copy of the message to my digital tickler system in DEVONThink. The reason for the copy is that then in the tickler I can just delete the message once I've handled it but leave my email archive intact. I then file the original in my Reference folder in my mail system. I archive most of my email and I still refer to messages that are decades old.
If it's an ad or news item I have finely tuned email rules that sort it out to a folder called Misc ads and news. At my weekly review time I go through that folder and clean it out. Ads are only useful when I need to buy something. I don't want to turn off the notices but I also don't really care about them 80% of the time. The discounts are worth it when I do use them so I also don't want to stop those messages so I made it easier to handle them in bulk once a week. News may be important or not, if I have time or am intersted I may look at the new but it's not a priority for me to check it daily.
On-line order confirmations go into an Order Info folder. When the item arrives they get moved into an Order Rcvd folder. I check Order Info monthly to clean out anything old and verify it. We get a lot of computer parts, boards and other stuff direct from China as part of my husband's computer consulting business. Those things can take a month or more to arrive but we need to track them and verify when they come in so I need them separate for quick review.
Messages that are people buying items from our on-line store I have to go pull and pack get printed out and then moved into a folder for reference. I print them so I have a copy I can use as a pull sheet over in the shop and ship as a packing list. The paper then goes over by the door so next time I go out I can pick up all of them and go pull the wool orders and prepare them for shipping.
Anything that I can easily respond to I do. The 2 minute rule. Although if I am honest I tend to stretch it to abut 5 minutes because otherwise that stuff builds up.
The remainder are usually things that relate to current active projects. Those also get copied into my DEVONThink folder for that project. I use DT as my project support material holder. The original is filed in Reference. I also add the actions or make a note of that in my task manager, Omnifocus, in that project or the action it relates to so I know there is digital action support material I may need to reference. Again it often takes 2-5 minutes to process each actionable message fully.
I also plan on enough time each day to handle email. For me I spend 1-2 hours a day clearing out my inboxes. Paper goes fairly fast so much of that time is spent handling either voicemail or email. If I run short then I make sure to plan more time within a day or 2 to catch up. Just this past week on Thursday for some reason my email was overflowing and it took a full 2.25 hours just to clear it all out. Fortunately the paper inbox was very small and I had no voicemail so while it was a longer day than normal I was still able to get it done.
We were both sick recently and this system was still easy to keep going, the gold standard for GTD practice. If a procedure or system is too hard to manage when you are sick then it's not going to work for you long term.