In my last post, I talked about how to get your email Inbox to 0, which is the first step in taking control of your email. Hopefully you’ve followed my advice (or made a good stab at it), and now you’re ready to move on to keeping it that way.

But first, let me ask. How did you feel when you got your Inbox down to 0 emails? Good? Anxious? Invigorated? I hope your reaction was positive, because if you liked it, you’re more likely to keep it that way. I like looking at an empty Inbox. It makes me feel like I’m on top of things.

So how do you keep it that way? Well, first understand that it’s an ongoing process. Often, you’ll clear your Inbox and a few seconds later, a new email pops in. That’s okay. It’s much easier to deal with them as they come in than letting them pile up.

Before you can truly master your email, you need all your messages in one place. If you use a program like Outlook, make sure it’s gathering up all your accounts. If you’re like me and despise Outlook, you can use Gmail, which can be set to import all your email accounts. Having them all in one place is a huge time saver, especially if you have many webmail accounts, like I do.

Once you’ve got them all in one place, use a similar strategy to what you used to get it to 0 in the first place. When you open your Inbox, categorize your emails as follows.

Take action on quick emails right away

If an email will take 5 minutes or less to handle, answer it and either delete or file. Don’t let it sit there.

Create To-Do items for emails that will take longer

Unless you have time to deal with the more time-consuming messages right now, make a note and file the email in your Action folder. This way you won’t worry about forgetting about it. Once it’s on your To-Do list and out of your Inbox, it stops weighing you down.

Obviously, you’ll have to take action on it, and the other items on your To-Do list, but that’s true whether you’re handling email well or not. If your To-Do list is out of control, read David Allen’s excellent Getting Things Done. You’ll notice that I’ve adapted his email system for these posts.

Delete the rest. Or even better, filter them

Filters are my friend. When an email comes in that is junk, I don’t just delete it. I set a filter to automatically route the email to my Deleted Items folder. I get up to 50 emails a day that I never see (I just checked and did a quick count.) That saves me so much time. Sure, it takes me a moment to set the filter the first time, but then all emails from that sender are automatically deleted.

I prefer this to unsubscribing. For example, I’m on several Daily Deal lists. Right now, I’m cutting back on eating out, so I don’t want to be tempted. When my weight is back where I want it, I might be interested again, so I can just remove the filter and go back to seeing tempting cupcakes in my Inbox.

Filtering keeps the amount of junk way down, which allows you to focus on what needs your attention.

I generally delete and filter first when I open my Inbox. Let’s say I have 20 emails. After deleting and filtering, I’m probably down to 6 or 7 that need action. Most of those are quick “Sure, that’s fine” emails, leaving me with only one or two that need more time.

Setting aside two or three blocks of time each day allows me to keep on top of it and routinely get my Inbox down to 0 (which is where it is at the time of this writing).

Sound good? Go ahead and try it for yourself!

Do you hate to open your email in the morning? Do you cringe at the thought of how many messages (both read and unread) are there? Would you rather get a root canal than answer one more email?

If you answered “Yes” to any of those, you aren’t alone. But it’s possible to be a good business person and not hate your email.

As I am writing this, my Inbox count is 0, and it’s the middle of the afternoon. I don’t hate my email. I’ve learned to make it work for me, and you can too.

The problem is that lots of people use email as a “reminder” tool. The theory is that if it’s in your Inbox, you’ll be reminded to take action. But that system breaks down as soon as you have more than 10-20 email “reminders” sitting there. We just can’t keep track of that much information, so we ignore most of it. I’m speaking from experience here. I used to do the same thing.

So what can you do?

First, get your Inbox down to 0 as soon as possible. Once you’ve got it down to 0 messages, you can start managing it.

“But, Juli!” you say. “I’ve got over 1000 message there. How do I get it down to 0?”

One message at a time. It might take you a few days (or a few weeks), but you can pare it back. Make a goal each day to have fewer emails at the end of the day than you did at the start, and you’ll get there.

Start with the junk

The odds are that most of the emails in your Inbox are junk. Delete them. Be ruthless. Email newsletters. Offers for the latest cool tech toy. Blog posts someone else thought you might enjoy. Everything like that. Delete them, right now.

If you absolutely think a message might be useful later, okay. File it. But get it out of your Inbox now.

The Old Stuff

If you have a lot of emails cluttering your Inbox, odds are most of them are ancient. Or at least old. Decide on a reasonable cut-off date and get rid of them.

“But, Juli! What if there’s a critical client communication in there?”

So what if there is? You haven’t acted on it before now. Odds are it’s too late anyway. Get rid of it!

Everything Else

Now you should have a reasonable number of messages to take action on. Go through them one by one. If answering it will take less than 5 minutes, do it now. If it will take longer than 5 minutes, add it to your To-Do list and file the message. I suggest having an “Action” folder for those messages. I create the To-Do and then keep the email in my Action folder for reference when I’m ready to, well, take action on it.

If you don’t need to take action on an email, either file it or delete it.

This may be a painful process. You’ll find stuff you’ve forgotten to do. You’ll find messages from friends and family members you wish you’d responded to, but trust me, it’s better to do this and get rid of the weight of all those messages. You’ll be more productive in the future.

What do you do once you get your Inbox to 0 for the first time? Tune in Friday where I give you some suggestions to stay at or near 0 forever!

Yesterday, I didn’t want to work. I felt sort of blah all day. But I still got stuff done, and I had a productive day.

Does this happen to you? I’m sure it does. Part of being a small business owner is having to find the self-motivation to work when we don’t feel like it. Without a boss checking to see if we’re playing Solitaire on our computer, it’s easy to fritter a whole day away.

How to manage the problem? I recommend having “Rainy Day” items in your action list. These are things that need to be done but don’t take a lot of creativity. Cleaning up my Twitter followers is a good example. Doesn’t take much brain power, and it’s something I hate to do when I’m at my best, but it’s perfect for “brain dead” days.

I also worked on editing and rewriting my urban fantasy story. It did require creativity, but it was also fun and didn’t feel too much like work.

What kinds of (productive) things do you do when you don’t feel like working?

I read a lot of advice on time management and am always looking for good ideas for my clients.

Something I’m not a fan of is advice to check email at specified times. Generally the suggestion is to check two or three times a day and discipline yourself to not check in between.

If you’ve read anything by me, you know I’m not big on one size fits all advice, and this one strikes me that way. I agree that many people waste time with email or feel that it controls them. So having a system to address the problem is good. But I think the advice to check a limited number of times a day puts the cart before the horse. First, you have to understand your issue with email and your needs with email.

Do you check email throughout the day as a way to avoid working? Or are you overwhelmed by the sheer amount you receive in a day?

Are you in a fast-paced business where quick response to email is key to your success? Or do you work in an office where up-to-the-minute response is not expected or required?

See my point? Each of the above situations indicate a slightly different response to email. The fast-paced business person who only checks and responds twice a day might miss opportunities.

The person who uses it as a distraction may have an underlying problem that goes beyond email. Like burned out on the job. Restricting access to email won’t address that.

Being in control of email and not letting it control you is important. But first understand the problem. Then work to find a solution.

In case you were wondering, I check email throughout the day. Processing it in short bursts works better for me and fits my personality and my business needs better than two or three marathon sessions each day.

How do you manage your email? Share your ideas and tips in the comments.