Let’s face it, if you use e-mail as part of your job it is quite likely that you may be suffering from Information Overload. Odds are, if you aren’t prepared to handle this constant onslaught of information it may even be causing you stress, or decreasing your productivity.

I’ve got news for you: it doesn’t have to be that way. Throughout the workday I keep two inboxes permanently open, and despite receiving lots of emails each day I rarely have more than 2 or 3 messages in my inbox. Do I spend my entire day responding to emails? Nope. Do I ignore the majority of my messages? Nope. Using just Gmail and Remember the Milk I have developed a system that allows me to remain productive without letting my inbox get out of control. It’s easy, I promise.

An email falls into 1 of 2 categories: those that require action, and those that don’t.
Realizing this is the foundation of maintaining a clean inbox. Let’s take a look at a simplistic, hypothetical e-mail for each of these categories.

Upon receiving this email I quickly read it, looking for any calls to action in addition to the general information provided. I am not in Marketing, so the option to upload/send content did not apply to me. In short, there was no need to respond or take other action. Result: I quickly archived this message, getting it out of my inbox immediately.

But what if I ever need to reference this message again? That’s the beauty of Gmail and its built-in search of all messages, including those that have been archived. Assuming I was paying attention when I was reading the message, I can find this message again via any number of keywords: “marketing”, “materials”, “backpack”, “Dian.” Now let’s look at an e-mail that does require action.

Looking at this email, despite it being short, it is obvious something is needed of me here. Namely, they have provided me with some new text to be applied to all outgoing emails from our web application. But I’m right in the middle of something! I don’t have time to do this right now! Have no fear: enter Remember the Milk.

Remember the Milk is an extremely comprehensive online todo list that provides integration with a number of tools and devices like Gmail, Twitter, and your mobile phone. Since we are using Gmail, we are most concerned with how RTM integrates with it. Basically, you can install the RTM Firefox add-on that puts your RTM todo list in your Gmail inbox, allowing you to quickly add, edit, and complete tasks (see screenshot to the right).

Since this email requires action, but I don’t want to let it clutter my inbox, the correct response is to add the action required to my RTM list in Gmail. Since this email includes an attachment that I will need to complete the task, I enter the following in my todo list: “Add new sig to emails, see signature.docx.” Once this is done, I quickly archive the message to get it out of my inbox.

Now that task is sitting on RTM (and thus in my Gmail inbox), and I can quickly reference throughout the day. When I am ready to complete the task I know what to search for in Gmail to quickly find the required attachment, namely “signature.docx” as I referenced in the todo item. Of course you can set due dates with these tasks too if it is needed by some given time.

Messages do not belong in your inbox
I can’t say this enough, messages are made to either a) convey information or b) request some action. In either case they don’t merit remaining in your inbox. Once you have processed any information, the e-mail can be archived. Once you realize the action needed (even if it is as simple as to send a reply), the action can be moved to a todo list and the email archived for later reference. It’s that simple.

If you stick by these ideas you can greatly reduce the amount of time spent in your inbox, your productivity, and maybe even your stress levels. Do you have your own system? Let me know in the comments.