Email is probably one of the most over used forms of communication today. It is a fantastic technology that has revolutionised the way we work but like most good things it is best in moderation.

People with a moderate amount of email in their inbox are few and far between and most are suffering from email overload. One of these people is Digg founder and angel investor Kevin Rose. The following article is taken from Kevin’s blog kevinrose.com and shows five strategies he has used to take control of his inbox and reclaim his life.

I’ll hand you over to Kevin…

My stats:
938 unread work emails.
1002 unread personal emails.

The madness has to stop. What was once a 30 minute annoyance is now my full-time job. Here are 5 time saving tips:

#5: Add a http://three.sentenc.es/ email signature and keep them short.

“Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.

three.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be three sentences or less. It’s that simple.”

Example signature:
——————————————–
Q: Why is this email three sentences or less?
A: http://three.sentenc.es
——————————————–

#4: Type “Sent from iPhone” under your short responses. People don’t expect long responses when you’re on your phone. Don’t forget to mispell a few words.

This all looks graet +1!!
Sent from iPhone.

#3: Create a ‘VIP’ filter. Add your boss, investors, and close friends. Flag them red and throw them in a separate folder. This is the first place I check every morning.

#2: (Gmail only) Keep the spam out. If you’re giving your address to a potentially shady website, tack on +spam to the end, example: yourname+spam@gmail.com. You can then filter those emails into a spam folder you check periodically. (ProTip: the +spam is a variable that can be anything you want, eg. yourname+football@gmail.com etc., make as many as you like)

#1: (Apple Mail or similar program) Setup an email bankruptcy filter. This is a little bit of a dick move, but if you’re getting hundreds of new emails a day, it just might work.

Step 1: Create a filter that auto-responds to all unopened emails > 14 days old w/the following message:

Your email (below) is now 14 days old and has not been opened. To minimize email buildup your email has now been placed in the archive. Should you still require a response simply respond back and you’ll automatically be added to the priority queue. Thank you.

Step 2: Setup another filter that looks for the text “Your email (below)”, this will catch the email responses back to you from those still requiring your response. Filter these into a special folder you check and respond to daily.

Good luck!