The Essential First Step in Clearing Your Email Backlog

Tired of looking at hundreds — perhaps thousands — of emails in your inbox? It’s time to clear out your email backlog.

The first step in the process is to empty everything into one inbox. If you have various email accounts — perhaps a personal email address and a business one — move the entire contents of one of your inboxes into the other. Don’t worry, you can still reply from whichever email address you choose to when you come to reply, regardless of where the email is currently stored.

If you have storage folders, meaning that you move emails from the inbox into folders to deal with later, move the entire contents of all of those folders into your inbox. Then delete the folders, because you won’t be using them again.

Exception: If you have storage folders for emails that have already been actioned and that you are saving in case you need to refer to them at some stage, they can stay in the folder. Make sure you only have one folder for all actioned emails. I call mine — funnily enough — “Actioned Emails”.

Now, let’s tackle your inbox.

Arrange your inbox so that the emails are sorted by the From field. In Outlook, you will notice that at the top of your list of emails it will say “By Date” with an arrow pointing downwards. Click on “By Date” and…