Inbox zero with Outlook

Inbox Zero is a great concept. Simply put, do something with your e-mail no matter what. Act on it, delete it, file it, defer it…eitherway, don’t just leave it in your inbox sitting there rotting. As simple as that is, I haven’t really bothered trying to reach inbox zero, but I think that might change soon.

Simple and effective

Inbox Zero is best applied to work e-mail. Sure, you can do inbox zero for your personal mail, but the nature of personal mail is much different than work mail. Work needs to be efficient, the forwards you get from Aunt Edith at home don’t have to be. Clients like GMail make organizing e-mail a breeze with all sorts of labels, colors, and other filters, but unfortunately GMail isn’t quite the defacto for enterprise e-mail, Outlook is.

I have to be honest and say that I never got much work e-mail. I received probably less than 50 e-mails a day from co-workers. And I’d say half of them were CCs that didn’t require I do anything. With that low volume of e-mail, you really don’t need a complex system to organize. A few folders and simple color coding was all I needed. However, moving to a new job position, I sense the volume of e-mail will go up quite a bit and will require some better e-mail management.

Folders are too slow and clunky

Folders will still be used but folders they’re slow. There’s no easy way to quickly move a message from Inbox to folder. Dragging the message is too slow. Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous but being the geek I am, I need hotkeys for maximum efficiency. What’s quicker, dragging a message to the trash or just hitting the delete button? Nuff said.

Unfortunately, in the real world you can’t just delete messages when you’re done to them. Call me paranoid but I keep 95% of all work e-mails…even the CCs because you never (never, never) know when you’ll need some obscure piece of information that was in a five-mail chain of forwards and replies. And you never (never, never) know when you’ll need that e-mail message to win an argument. That seemingly random message from the IT guy might just save your ass one day. So archiving is the solution…but I need quick archiving, and that means a hotkey.

Flag it and go

A little Google refresher on Outlook hotkeys and I discovered that the INSERT key will change an message’s flag to red. Hit the key again and it changes to a checkmark. A message with a flag is a message that can be easily styled, and to me a visual status cue is just as good as having the e-mail move from one folder to another.

Using the insert key to flag messages, I setup some conditional formatting that styles all flagged messages as light grey, effectively turning them “off” even though they still live inside the main Inbox. A message that is faded means it’s not important and requires no more attention. A message that is dark/bold (unflagged) means it’s new or requires that I still do something. And if you group your messages based on flag, you can hide flagged messages from view and then the only thing staring you in the face is new and actionable messages. Perfect.

Flagging messages allow for easy color coding

This color coding is great for me but it doesn’t move any messages. Enter rules. Rules are great for incoming and outgoing messages but Outlook lacks real-time rules. Now that unneeded e-mails are flagged it’s easy to create a rule that moves all flagged messages from the Inbox to another folder. The downside is you have to run that manually but if I can get in the habit of doing that at least weekly, I should be good. And then boom, inbox zero-ish.

Color code and style for easy organizing

The conditional formatting in Outlook is definitely something everyone should look into. It’s easy to setup and will do wonders for helping you find messages within your non-zero inbox. I also have conditions setup that style CC messages differently than direct messages. I use rules to color code messages from the bosses and department heads. Color coding is a HUGE helper.

Folders can work for archiving data when they’re smartly labeled and used, but I see way too many people that create too many folders, sometimes one for each person they receive mail from. There’s a folder for the boss, the assistant, the janitor…I’ve seen people with no less than 12 folders. Not only is organizing with folders is a horrible way to categorize data but even programs like Outlook offer you easy ways to filter your messages which will do the sorting for you. How much time would you save each day if you didn’t have to micro-manage your e-mail?

Outlook sucks but when you’re chained to it you have find ways to make it work. Outlook is not GMail and when everyone uses Outlook you can’t be the rebel that uses some alternate client. That will cause more problems than it’s worth. Outlook may not be GMail but it’s not completely useless, you just have to know what’s available to help make your organizing easier. Now if Outlook can just make their mail search a little better we’ll all be happy.