How many emails are currently in your Inbox? Under 50? Over 300?

A recent blog post at Kristi T's Home Business Blog stimulated me to think about how I handle my cyber-correspondence.

As a harried physician and a scrambling business person, you are probably inundated with emails daily, with no time to get out from under the deluge. That's not counting the spam. And heaven forbid you should go away for a few days!

In a desperate attempt to control my own email onslaught, I have had to devise a number of ways to put my Inbox on a diet AND maintain a trim weight.

The only way I have been able to discipline myself is to not allow myself to go to bed until I have gotten my Inbox emails to below 30.

This is how I do it (I use Microsoft Outlook):

1. Move any "to-do" type emails to my Task list with a follow-up date and time, plus a copy of the email (using Insert Item), or to my Calendar, also with the copy of the email attached to the appointment (using the Insert Item).
2. Scan newsletters/blogs etc for useful links, open the web pages and then save them using a tool called Web Research Professional by Macropool (it costs about $40 and allows me to categorize, "file" and then later search for any web page I have kept). It's like a Paper Tiger for web pages. I then dump the email.
3. Quickly dictate my more wordy responses using Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred, version 9, as I am a slow and lousy typist (there's a Medical version as well, which is a lot more expensive).
4. Move emails to the appropriate folder, with a "follow-up" flag that is dated and timed for the anticipated follow up date. I have MANY folders (and they are all searchable if I need to find a "lost" email).
5. Use SpamBayes as a spam filter added into Outlook. This free application is great for detecting spam, but often picks up stuff that is not spam, so you have to train it by clicking on the "Delete as spam" button in the Inbox, or "Recover from spam" in the Junk mail.
6. Although this runs counter to the wagging fingers that tell you not to check email on vacation, I do. So that I can enjoy the last few days of the holiday and not worry about returning to a hideous mess.
   Instead of using mail access, which still probably dumps all the emails and replies into my Inbox, I use GoToMyPC. For $20 a month, this simple-to-use application allows you to work remotely at your desk as if you're personally sitting there. I can then return smugly to a normal Inbox.
7. Toss, toss, toss anything that is not related to patients, clients, prospects and possible business.

Any other great tips out there? Email is becoming such a human-consuming beast - if you have ways to help us all tame it, I'd love to hear from you.