5 Ways To Tame Your Office Inbox

Depending on your prescribed philosophy, email is either the best thing since sliced bread or an emotionless and difficult medium. But one thing most people can agree on is that the number of unread messages in your email inbox is always inversely proportional to the number of other things you need to be doing.

While the best solution to a regularly full inbox is to educate colleagues on which things are email-worthy and which aren’t – no need for a monosyllabic “Thanks” email or send-to-all updates on birthdays/parties/whatever – there are steps you can take to tame this unwieldy beast yourself.

1. Automate sorting

Most email clients such as Outlook and Gmail have features that make it easy to customize which emails you will reply to and which emails can be filed away for future reference. You can limit desktop alerts, file away emails you are simply cc’d in, and automatically flag important emails. You can check out Outlook shortcuts here and even install a Chrome extension that helps you with your Gmail shortcuts.

2. Clean as you go

What cannot be automatically sorted, you can manage yourself. Just use labels and folders and move emails as you read them. Don’t set it aside for a different time, just file as you read and your inbox will be so much cleaner.

3. Unsubscribe from newsletters

Are you really reading that email from Mashable or Businessweek? Or are you subscribed simply because it makes you feel “smarter”? If you’re using your office email to subscribe to industry news, make sure you’re reading them regularly. If not, just unsubscribe. A fun web tool called Unroll.me helps you look at all your subscriptions and unsubscribe automatically. There are some updates you need to receive, but new additions to Spotify are simply not one of them.

4. Maximize Subject Lines

A good subject line should tell the receiver or sender what is in the email. Start with the action required and the project it is in reference to. Begin with abbreviations like FYI, ATTN, FOR APPROVAL, etc. Once you start using them, your colleagues should see the efficiency possibilities. At the very least, they will reply with the same subject line and make it easier for your inbox.

5. Schedule your email checks

Most people simply check their email more often than they need to. This is of course because they’re afraid of missing an important message. Try training yourself to only check your inbox every 2 or 3 hours. Then determine from there if you can go for longer by just checking your email once in the morning and another time in the afternoon.

Email should work for you, not the other way around. Don’t spend half your workday cleaning up after it. Maximize the tools you have, use a messenger for chat, and don’t let email-checking break your productivity.

Kalibrr is a recruitment technology company that aims to transform how candidates find jobs and how companies hire talent. Placing the candidate experience at the center of everything it does, we continue to attract the best talent from all over, with more than 5.5 million professionals and counting. Kalibrr ultimately connects these talents to companies in search of their next generation of leaders.

The only end-to-end recruitment solutions provider in Southeast Asia, Kalibrr is headquartered in Makati, Philippines, with offices in San Francisco, California, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Established in 2012, it has served over 18,000 clients and is backed by some of the world’s most powerful start-up incubators and venture capitalists. These include Y Combinator, Omidyar Network, Patamar Capital, Wavemaker Partners, and Kickstart Ventures.

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