Years ago, I read and wrote about Ben Maughan’s excellent method of handling his email. It’s an inbox zero method that insists that for each message in your inbox you should
- Read and delete it, or
- Read and store it in a single folder, or
- Read and store it in a single folder and act on it immediately, or
- Read and store it in a single folder and create a TODO entry to act on it later
The important thing is that each message is acted on and removed from the inbox immediately. That makes it pretty easy to achieve inbox zero. When I first read Maughan’s post I was still using the Apple Mail app but I was immediately taken with his method and soon moved to mu4e, the mail client he used, and adopted his method.
That method works very well for me but some folks have a lot of email and require a more complicated method. Alain M. Lafon is, apparently, one such person and although he, too, uses mu4e, he uses the mu4e bookmark facility to organize his emails. You can read his post for the details.
For folks like me with a minimal email overhead, Maughan’s method is ideal. I’m inclined to think it would probably work well for those with more robust email requirements as well but I have no first hand evidence. If you think you need something stronger than Maughan’s method, take a look at Lafon’s post for another possibility.