How much time do you spend managing emails each week? The number is probably in hours and not minutes.
If you’re anything like the heaviest email users, you may spend over eight hours per week on email.
And if anything, the amount of time you spend managing emails may even rise. In 2023, it’s predicted around 347 billion emails will be sent each day.
Reading and replying to emails takes up a significant part of the day!
Plus, there’s that annoying urge to check your emails every hour or so. Email management can be stressful and a drag on productivity.
The good news is there are plenty of hacks and techniques to help you better manage your inbox.
15 Hacks to Better Manage Your Inbox
Are you tired of your overflowing inbox weighing you down? Here are 15 quick fixes to declutter and streamline your inbox.
1. Label and categorize every email
Flag, label, and categorize each email to maintain an organized inbox. The clearer this process is, the easier it becomes to locate specific emails when needed.
Every individual will have their own preferences for organizing their inbox. It ultimately depends on your professional and personal needs, so it may require some trial and error to determine what works best for you.
For starters, create parent categories and subcategories for different projects or clients.
Then, you could create categories for your work inbox, such as team collaboration, company announcements, or hiring.
It’s easy enough to set up labels and categories in Gmail and Microsoft Outlook. Here’s where to find it in your Gmail account.
Here’s how to do it in Outlook:
- Right-click a message and select Create rule.
- Select New folder and type a name for it.
Doing this means all your messages from this sender will go to this folder.
2. Create mini-inboxes
In addition to your primary inbox, you can create mini-inboxes within it and organize emails by client type, project, campaign, or topic. It’s an easy way to organize all those emails that accumulate over weeks and months.
Here’s how to do it in Gmail:
- Click “Settings” on the dropdown.
- Select “Inboxes” on the top navigation menu and add up to 5 custom inbox sections. Make sure you save changes.
- Once you are done, go back to your inbox. A new tab with your custom inbox sections will appear on the extreme right.
Outlook uses Rules to keep your inbox organized.
Here’s how to send all emails with a specific subject line keyword to a folder:
- Right-click a message.
- Select Rules.
- Choose Subject contains.
- Add the words you want.
- Select OK.
3. Block out time each day to check and reply to emails
Checking email every 20 minutes consumes valuable time during your workday. Although emails may seem less time-consuming than phone calls, they can ultimately create more stress.
The compulsive urge to check your emails constantly interrupts your deep work time –approximately 20% of people check their inboxes as soon as a new email arrives. After such distractions, it becomes difficult to refocus and concentrate on completing important tasks. In fact, one study found that employees spend up to 23 minutes recovering from an email interruption.
To limit distractions, allocate a set time every day to handle your email.
This could be 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at lunch—whatever time suits your schedule. Avoid multitasking during this time and concentrate on managing your email as efficiently as possible. Additionally, to ensure your messages are delivered effectively, check for any issues with your sender's reputation. You can do this, for instance, by using an email delivery service such as EmailLabs.
4. Create filters
Filters automatically manage your emails so you don’t miss important messages that require action. Whether an email needs to go to the right folder or straight to the trash, filters keep your inbox tidy.
In Gmail, it’s simple to set up filters:
- Go to Settings in the top right corner and select See all settings.
- Select Filters and Blocked Addresses on the top menu.
- Click Create a new filter.
- Add your criteria, including the sender, subject, keywords, and receiver. Then click Create filter and choose what you’d like to do with the emails.
This setting also lets you block email addresses if you want them to show up in your Spam instead.
It’s also simple to set up filters in Outlook.
Note that Outlook to sort an inbox or folder.
From any email folder, select Filter email from the Find group in the ribbon.
Once you choose a filter, Outlook scans your mailbox based on that filter.
The filter's shorthand will also appear in the search box. For instance, if you want to display all emails with attachments, you can select "Has Attachments" or type "Has attachments:yes" in the Search box.
5. Delegate your inbox management
Letting someone else handle your email accounts allows you to win back hours of your time. You could delegate your inbox management to a coworker or a virtual assistant.
Here's how to outsource to a VA:
- Give VAs a document that clearly explains your email inbox setup. Include details on folders, labels, and sorting rules.
- Walk them through several examples of how you sorted ambiguous emails.
- Have your assistant sort fifty emails and review their sorting accuracy. If they are sorted correctly, offload your inbox management to them. However, if they made mistakes, provide additional coaching.
If you don't have an assistant or your in-house admin support is too busy working on other tasks, consider hiring a virtual assistant through a managed service.
A managed virtual assistant service like ours provides an Engagement Manager who will help you create your inbox management system and train your assistant to use it.
Plus, they'll help you offload additional admin tasks such as calendar management, CRM organization, social media posting, and customer support.
If you Google “virtual assistants, " you’ll find thousands of results at various price points. However, it’s usually better to hire a virtual assistant through a managed system like ours. When you collaborate with managed virtual assistants, the processes of recruitment, hiring, vetting, and training are taken care of.
Recommended reading: Hire a Virtual Email Assistant and Free Up Your Inbox
6. Turn off notifications
It can be hard, if not impossible, to ignore those alerts and notifications flashing across your desktop or mobile. Constant notifications are distracting.
Having your email open on a tab all day will mean alerts, notifications, and beeps disrupting your workflow and changing focus. When you’re not actively working through emails on your desktop, close off any tabs related to your inbox and quit any inbox desktop apps.
Switch off email notifications on your phone so you’re not tempted to check your screen for unread emails.
That way, when an email comes through, you won’t feel the need to jump into your inbox and click on it.
7. Archive email threads
Any emails that aren’t active but may still be useful in the future can go straight into the archive. Once a project’s been wrapped up or a client contract has expired, it’s a good idea to put those emails in the archive.
You don’t need to read them every day or week, so avoid cluttering up your inbox by leaving them in the archive.
8. Set up shared inboxes
Group emails can get annoying. Messages that aren’t relevant to everyone in the group keep arriving. Sometimes, only three people are required to respond or act on the message, yet 15 others have to read it.
So, there needs to be a method for organizing emails to match your team’s workflow. Email collaboration tools like Hiver and Teamwork can help you ensure that the right people see the right emails.
Instead of endless email threads about ongoing projects, you could move the conversation to project management software such as Asana, Monday.com, or Trello.
9. Implement inbox zero
Inbox zero might seem like an unrealistic goal, but it’s doable. All you need to do is declutter your inbox first. Then, once you only have important read emails and threads in your inbox, commit to staying at zero.
Even if you receive hundreds of emails each day, you can achieve inbox zero. Adhering to your rules and dedicating time each day to review and respond to emails is essential.
If you’re delegating email management to a virtual assistant or another team member, you may only need to set aside time to write and review important responses weekly.
If you needed any more convincing, our managed virtual assistant assisted her member in reducing their inbox from 20,000 messages to under 1,000 in less than two weeks. The member’s inbox is now much more manageable and organized, and she’s working towards inbox zero.
10. Use email management software
Email management tools like Hiver or SaneBox can help clean up your inbox and ensure it stays that way.
Hiver is a Gmail integration that adds functionality and automation to the platform. It lets you assign emails to specific people, set email statuses, include internal notes, and store email templates.
Hiver subscriptions begin at $ 15 per user per month, although there are no free plans available.
SaneBox is a powerful email management tool for individuals seeking to streamline their personal inboxes. By utilizing AI, the software learns your email habits and automatically sorts incoming emails in your inbox.
High-priority emails appear in your main inbox, while lower-priority ones go to a separate folder. This feature is particularly useful if you receive a lot of email marketing messages.
SaneBox plans start from $7/month.
These tools are a quick way to give your inbox a helping hand and prevent it from becoming messy.
11. Follow rules
Once you implement guidelines such as staying on inbox zero or segmenting specific messages, stick to them.
Create a running document of all the rules you follow to keep your inbox organized.
Include the following:
- How to use separate folders for incoming emails
- Canned email responses for when you’re busy
- Protocol for urgent emails
- Follow-up responses
- Templates
12. Flag emails that need urgent attention
Some emails require more consideration before you respond. In such cases, an impulsive reply will not be effective. For emails you cannot reply to immediately, flag them and return to them during your next dedicated email session.
Flagging emails serves as a reminder to review those that need extra attention. In Gmail, you can star them so they appear in your starred folder, while in Outlook, you can flag them.
You can also mark important emails as unread, enabling you to prioritize your most time-consuming replies.
You could also schedule a specific time during the week to handle these emails all at once.
13. Only handle it once
The Only Handle It Once (OHIO) method relies on making an efficient decision right away.
Returning to the same email repeatedly wastes valuable time. Once you handle it, take the necessary action and move on to the next item on your agenda.
The handle it once principle sounds simple, but it can be challenging to implement in email. Often, we open an email and avoid replying to it for several hours or days, leaving it lurking in our minds.
The OHIO method will stop you from feeling distracted by the thought of unanswered emails, which can lower your productivity.
14. Create email templates for default replies
If you receive lots of emails that require the same message, you could create a set of email templates for similar responses. Create several categories based on the types of replies you send, and then you can tailor them accordingly for different replies.
This will save you plenty of time from repeatedly writing the same message from scratch. You could even create canned responses where you state your hours of availability and when you’ll reply to emails.
This technique also works even if you hold a senior leadership position with lots of responsibility. Just add an auto-responder, including the hours you’ll respond to their email. If someone has an urgent inquiry, then they can call you on the number you provide. You can also add your email footer or HTML email signature to these templates, making it easy to share contact info or a digital business card with every reply. This is especially helpful for senior leaders who need to communicate efficiently.
15. Unsubscribe from newsletters you don’t read
Be careful about what you sign up for. Promotional emails and newsletters can quickly fill your inbox. It’s easy to subscribe to several newsletters or accidentally check yes to receive promotional emails. Before you know it, your inbox overflows with emails you’re never going to read.
Only subscribe to those emails that you’re actually interested in reading. If you’re always deleting or archiving certain emails, it’s time to unsubscribe from them.
To thoroughly detox your emails, consider mass unsubscribing if doing it manually feels overwhelming. Unroll.me offers a free service that allows you to easily unsubscribe from emails quickly.
Here, you can view a complete list of all your subscription emails and unsubscribe from any that you don’t want.
16. Use a professional email delivery service
A well-organized inbox is important, but it won’t matter if your emails never reach their destination. Spam filters, sending limits, and poor email infrastructure can all impact deliverability, causing delays or even blocking your messages entirely.
Unlike free email providers, a professional email delivery service is designed to ensure your emails land in the inbox, not the spam folder. Services like TurboSMTP offer dedicated infrastructure, authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and real-time tracking to maximize deliverability.
With a professional SMTP service, you get:
- Higher inbox placement – Optimized sending to reduce the risk of spam filtering.
- Scalability – Send large volumes of emails without hitting provider limits.
- Better sender reputation – Maintain a trusted domain and avoid blacklists.
- Advanced analytics – Track delivery rates, opens, and potential issues.
Whether you’re sending newsletters, transactional emails, or important business communications, a reliable SMTP service gives you full control over email delivery, improving efficiency and ensuring your messages always reach their audience.
Stay On Inbox Zero with Prialto
There is no universal approach to email management. Some swear by inbox zero, while others may find that having multiple labels and filters suffices.
Relying on a managed virtual assistant can help take the pressure off your day-to-day email management.
Additionally, once you begin delegating your inbox management, you will notice that there are numerous time-consuming tasks you can outsource to your VA.
Ready to win back eight hours or more each week? Learn more about how hiring a managed virtual assistant can save you time.
Inbox Management FAQs
1. What is the best way to manage emails?
It’s best to block out time weekly to manage your emails. That way, you can maintain a tidy inbox before it gets out of control.
Consider delegating some of your inbox management tasks to a managed virtual assistant.
2. How do I manage so many emails?
Many people find managing their full inbox overwhelming. Here are five quick tricks to manage your emails more efficiently:
- Block out time each day to check and respond to emails
- Set up inbox labels and filters
- Flag important emails
- Create email templates
- Delegate your inbox management
3. How is email management done?
Email management is the process of handling your work and personal email inboxes. When done correctly, email management helps you keep your emails under control and prevents you from feeling distracted.