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I don't know about you, but I get dozens-if not hundreds-of e-mails a day.
Unlike most people, however, I'm able to process through them, respond quickly, and get my inbox empty in 20 minutes (checking perhaps 2-3 times a day).
In fact, I respond so quickly, and empty my inbox so quickly, that friends have called me an "e-mail ninja."
Let's look at some simple strategies for being able to get your inbox to done in as little time as possible.
Pre-empt The first stage of any e-mail strategy is to stop any unnecessary e-mail from getting into your inbox in the first place. When I said I get perhaps hundreds of e-mails a day, I deceived a bit-most of those e-mails never make it to the inbox. They go straight to the spam folder or the trash. You only want the essential e-mails in your inbox, or you'll be overwhelmed.
1. Junk. I recommend using Gmail, as it has the best spam filter possible. I get zero spam in my inbox. That's a huge improvement over my previous accounts at Yahoo and hotmail, where I'd have to tediously mark dozens of e-mails as spam. (Editor's note: Gmail and other "free" e-mail accounts are not appropriate for doctors of chiropractic, since they still are considered less than professional. Instead, use a good spam filter such as SpamBully [www.spambully.com]).
2. Notifications. I often get notifications from the many online services I use, from Amazon to WoräTress to PayPal and many more. As soon as I notice those types of notifications filling up my inbox, I create a filter (or "rule" if you use Mail.app or Outlook) that will automatically put these into a folder and mark them as read, or trash them, as appropriate. So for my PayPal notifications, I can always go and check on them in my "payments" folder if I like, but they never clutter my inbox.
3. Batch work....