<p>I've gone back and forth between having an organized inbox and having an inbox with absolutely everything I've received in it.  </p>

<p>Would you recommend leaving everything in an inbox, or organize it?  If you organize it, is there any method to your madness or possibly an Outlook (2003) plug-in to aid in this task?</p>

<p>For what it's worth, I <em>feel</em> way more productive with everything in my inbox, grouped by date.  I <em>feel</em> like a spend way more time doing inbox management any other way.</p>

[{'answer_id': 38120, 'author': 'Patrik Svensson', 'author_id': 936, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/936', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I\'m going with the Microsoft way;</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Delete it</li>\n<li>Defer it</li>\n<li>Delegate it</li>\n<li>Do it</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It works for me great.<br>\nYou can read about it at <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/manageinfo/email.mspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/manageinfo/email.mspx</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 38121, 'author': 'Brian Boatright', 'author_id': 3747, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3747', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I switched to gMail and have never been happier.</p>\n\n<p>You could also try using a tags plugin like <a href="http://www.taglocity.com/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.taglocity.com/index.html</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 38154, 'author': 'ljs', 'author_id': 3394, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3394', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I would recommend following the <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=973149761529535925" rel="nofollow noreferrer">inbox zero</a> approach advocated by 43 folders. Joel Spolsky apparently uses it and a lot of people feel it\'s a great way of decluttering and organising your email life :-).</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 38167, 'author': 'Chris Upchurch', 'author_id': 2600, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2600', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>The best place to start with getting control of your email is definitely Merlin Mann\'s excellent <a href="http://www.43folders.com/izero" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Inbox Zero</a> series.  In particular his <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=973149761529535925&amp;hl=en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Google Tech Talk video</a> is a great talk.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 38175, 'author': 'Nathan Fellman', 'author_id': 1084, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1084', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>If you don't want to actually clear out your inbox, you could use a good search utility like Google Desktop, Yahoo Desktop Search (is that what it's called) or my current favorite, Xobni.<br>\nWith these tools you don't have to worry about where you put the mails you saved.  Just save them all and let the tools find it.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 38180, 'author': 'Unsliced', 'author_id': 2902, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2902', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Keep to the ideal of inbox zero in the actual inbox, then employ a decent search engine (Google Desktop or Xobni for example). </p>\n\n<p>I have a handful of project- or filter-specific folders (e.g. for system generated status messages that go to a mailing list), but generally all archived email is dumped in one folder. </p>\n\n<p>In Outlook 2007 categories (which can approach the usefulness of tags) do add a potentially useful dimension. </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 38195, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I use message flags for my "action folders" and shunt everything into one big Archive folder after I process it (use the <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>V</kbd> shortcut to do this).  As an example, I might flag a received message with a red flag (reply), a blue flag (pending, meaning I have to do something about it first), or maybe a green flag (reference).  I then have search folders for each of my flag colors.</p>\n\n<p>This flagging/search folder method is explained fairly well in <a href="http://samkale.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/adapting-the-google-foo-email-tips-for-the-outlook-bound/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this blog post</a>.</p>\n\n<p>I\'ve also implemented a <a href="http://danbrettsblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/give-outlook-gmail-conversation-view.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Gmail-like conversation view</a> search folder which has been pretty handy.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 38215, 'author': 'Martin', 'author_id': 770, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/770', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>We\'ve invested in a few licenses of <a href="http://www.techhit.com/SimplyFile/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Simply File</a> for our employees.  Works a treat at managing your inbox - it learns (don\'t ask me how, but it is very good) how to file things for you and does it automatically.</p>\n\n<p>I was sceptical about it at first, until I tried it then I was a convert.</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/38117', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4066/']