Inbox Zero

I have been looking to be more efficient at work. One thing that got to me was the time I spent on email. I looked at it closely and made some changes.

Stop sending so many emails.
I looked at my incoming email 2500 in three months and my out going email 800 in three months. I realized that I was part of the problem. I replied to everything directed to me even if it was just 'Thanks'. I emailed notes to someone else who was in the same meeting also not paying attention to the speaker. I also noticed that I take longer to type up a message than it would take to call them. Now if I have a quick question for one person, I just call. Shocking. If I have the answer, but it was directed to someone else, I let them reply.

Stop sorting emails.
This has been huge. Probably half the emails I get are what is called reference. I don't need to do anything with them, but it might be important to know later. Previously, I would decide which of 27 folders to stick the email in. When I needed to find it I would go to that folder and look for it often resorting to searching for some topic in the email. When the email was not there, I looked in the next most likely folder. Now, I have one folder which is read mail for the current 3 month period. Anything, reference is filed there quickly with CTRL, Shift, V. I don't spend any time thinking where to put it. Since everything goes in the same bucket, I can highlight 10 read mails and move them at once. Yes, when I go to find something, I have to sort through 100s of emails instead of dozens, but knowing who sent it and when lets me find it quickly. If not, the computer can search on a topic fairly quickly.

Looking at it now, I see this is a known efficiency tactic. If you notice, Gmail embraces this.