Is your e-mail in-box out of control? Are you losing track of what you need to do or having a hard time prioritizing your work? Is your IT contact person begging you to free up some server space? If so, read on to learn how to completely empty your in-box in less than five minutes (and get ideas on how to keep it that way)!

Does the thought of a completely empty in-box starts your heart racing? Don’t panic—this is much easier than it seems!

Have you put off setting up a good e-mail management system because you can’t imagine how you’ll find the time or energy to sift through the hundreds (or even thousands) of e-mails in your in-box? Here's a liberating news flash: You’ll never find the time! So don’t bother—try something different.

In my experience, the act (or even the thought) of sorting through the backlog of of old, decomposing e-mails wastes so much time and energy that it actually prevents you from creating an effective e-mail management system.

There is a much easier, energizing way to take control of your e-mail that I use with most of my clients when we tackle their in-box.

If you are technologically intimidated by any of these three steps, purchase an iced coffee today and offer it to the first colleague who will help you.

1. Create a folder among your saved mail folders called “Old In-box.”
2. Move the contents of your current in-box to this folder.
3. Click back on your empty in-box and reflect on how great all this white space makes you feel.
4. (Optional:) Mark a date on your calendar to go back and delete the entire folder, moving any e-mails you happen to refer to between now and then out of the folder.

Wasn’t that easy? I’m the first to admit that keeping your in-box empty won’t be quite as simple—but it’s easier than you think with the help of some new systems and habits. But the point here is that you don’t need to let your overflowing in-box keep you from starting fresh today.

You can now take the countless hours you would have spent sorting through old email and invest them in or creating the new systems and healthy habits that will make an empty in-box a reality. Focus your energy on the new e-mail as it arrives.

Maintaining an empty e-mail in-box is a lot easier than it seems. Most problems arise when we use our in-box as a to-do list, calendar, filing cabinet and address book. When we use our in-box in these ways, important e-mails quickly get lost in a sea of low value ones, quickly pushed off the screen—out of sight and out of mind, creating an anxiety that we’re forgetting something. Your e-mail in-box works best when it’s used for just that—an in-box.

Three systems that will keep your in-box empty

1. Create a new habit around triaging incoming e-mail quickly and effectively. Those of you who’ve taken my GO System training will recognize the value in having a way to quickly triage incoming mail by making it a habit to apply one of “The Five Decisions.” You can read about “The Five Decisions” in an earlier article I wrote called Analysis Paralysis. You may want to also limit your checking of e-mail to a few times a day, or to commit to completely empty your in-box at the end of the day.

2. Create a system for storing reference e-mail. Forget intricate folders and subfolders and more subfolders—keep things simple, use broad headings and install a good file search program like Google Desktop. Once you’re confident that you can find filed e-mail when you need it, you’re much more likely to move it out of your in-box.

3. Create a system for storing e-mail that requires follow up. Ideally, e-mail that requires follow-up gets moved out of your in-box and placed in the same location as all of your other tasks, so that you can prioritize your entire workload quickly and easily; monitoring multiple task managers like stacks of paper, stickie notes, to-do lists and electronic lists is as frustrating and futile as playing Whack-A-Mole. See my article called “Five Signs of a Great Task Management System” for some ideas.

These are just a few ideas to help you experience the pleasure of a clear in-box. While I could have included many more technological tips and tricks, remember that managing your e-mail in-box—like every other aspect of working productively—is primarily about your habits and behaviors, not about software and gadgets.

Feel free to share your ideas on keeping your e-mail in-box empty by posting a comment.

Want to use this article in your e-newsletter or website? You can use this material in whole or in part, as long as you include this complete attribution and live link: Productivity consultant and trainer Cristin Lind of Clearwater Productivity helps busy professionals enhance their work and enrich their lives. If you’re ready to get more done with less effort, visit www.clearwaterproductivity.com.