6 Email Tips That Prevent Me from Feeling Overwhelmed Every Time I Check My Inbox

      I’m always on the go, moving at 100 miles per hour, while my mind races even faster at 200 miles per hour. I juggle 30 tabs on my computer and even more in my mind—half of those are playing music and the other half are reminders of things I’ll likely forget (hello ADHD?). I've operated this way for as long as I can remember, but after landing a very corporate job post-college, I quickly realized the importance of efficiency, especially when it came to managing my inbox. In essence, I needed to learn to control it, or it would control me.

      Managing client emails, combating spam, and maintaining a professional tone made my inbox feel like a space I could never fully clean, no matter how hard I tried. I experimented with countless methods and folder systems—at one point, I even tried the “mark as unread and pretend it doesn’t exist” tactic. Most of them fell short and were time-consuming to establish (which I could not afford). Ultimately, after much trial and error, I uncovered a few inbox strategies that helped me take charge of my inbox and my sanity.

      Since adopting these techniques, I've noticed a boost in my productivity and confidence at work while my email-related anxiety has gradually diminished. Now, I spend less time sifting through messages and more time focusing on the essential aspects of my job. Therefore, if you’re looking to escape the daunting abyss of your inbox, these email strategies are for you. Trust me, your stress levels (and your future self) will be grateful.

      1. Set up delay-delivery

      If you took a glance at my shockingly poor spelling and grammar, you’d never believe I communicate with corporate executives daily. I’m not terrible (okay, maybe a bit), but I type too quickly, hit send too soon, and end up with too many minor errors. Discovering the undo-send feature in my inbox felt like hitting the lottery.

      This feature offers a grace period—essentially allowing you to retract an email before it's sent out. Now, I have a glorious six seconds after hitting send to spot my mistakes and pull my email back from the abyss known as the “cloud.” This simple setting has spared me from more “Oops, what I meant to say…” follow-ups than I can count.

      If you use Outlook, like I do, you can set this up in your “Compose and Reply” settings, as shown in this tutorial video. If you’re a Gmail user, you’re in luck—this should already be configured with a five-second delay. If you want a longer delay, check your general settings and extend it up to 30 seconds.

      2. Organize projects or clients by color

      I manage around 15 clients, each with their own contacts and associates. Naturally, keeping track of all their details and projects used to be a daily source of stress. No matter how many YouTube organization videos I watched, every system often resulted in longer searches for emails, quickly becoming counterproductive. Then, I discovered Outlook's color categories. These allow me to easily identify and organize related items like meetings, appointments, emails, notes, and contacts.

      Now, whenever I receive an email or need to arrange a meeting, I can categorize it according to the specific client or project. Subsequently, I just navigate to the category to see everything at once. I love a color-coded system, but even if you don’t, these will help streamline your workflow.

      To begin using these in Outlook, check out this tutorial that shows how to create categories and assign emails and calendar invites to them. If you’re using Gmail, you can create labels that perform similarly (though only for emails). In either case, these essentially function as folders to keep everything organized.

      3. Set up rules to automatically sort emails

      If you like the idea of sorting your emails by sender, subject, or attachments but lack the time or motivation to do it, creating rules (or filters, as Gmail refers to them) to do it automatically is a fantastic hack. These act like a little inbox genie—organizing your inbox in the background. Rules can be set in various ways, making them adaptable for anyone in any field. Personally, I primarily use rules to automatically color-code and file my emails (you’ll never see me doing that manually again).

      In Outlook, you can also configure emails to appear in specific colors based on their content or sender. For example, emails from your manager might show up in red, while emails with attachments can appear in yellow. This is what Outlook calls conditional formatting. These rules easily draw attention to important emails, helping you stay organized.

      4. Use templates to build your emails

      As I spend more time in corporate America, I fully agree with the saying that time is money. A significant portion of my day is spent answering common questions, and I loathe the repetitive task of typing the same email over and over. When my first work