Is your inbox overflowing with emails? You're not alone. Hey, everyone. Kevin here. Today, I'll show you one of the best ways to take control of your Outlook inbox and finally hit inbox zero. I used this exact system when I worked at Microsoft, and it made a huge difference in staying organized and on top of my work. Let's dive in. Here I am in my Outlook inbox using Outlook on the web. If you're using the desktop app, no worries. The same system works there too. Now, I have all these different emails in my inbox. Some of them need just a quick response. Some will take longer. Some can wait, and some are just noise. To organize all of this email, we're going to use a simple three-folder system to get through all of this. Over on the left-hand side, you'll see that there are some existing folders that Outlook created for us, but we're going to add to this list. So right here, we have folders, and when we hover over this, you'll see the three dots over on the right-hand side. Let's click on this, and right here, we have the option to create a new folder. Let's click here. First, let's create a folder called Action Items, and this will contain all the different emails that you need to respond to or act on. Once you finish typing that in, click on the check mark, and there we now see our new folder. Let's click on these three dots, and we could change some of the properties related to this folder. Right here, we have the option to change the color. Let's set that to red, so this folder really stands out. We'll be spending a lot of time here. Let's go back up to folders. We see the three dots again. Let's click on this, and let's add another new folder. I'll click here, and for this folder, let's call it Waiting On. This will contain all the messages where we're waiting for someone else to respond. Sometimes, you'll send someone a request, and they don't get back to you, in which case, you need to ping them again or remind them about your email. Right over here, let's click on the check mark, and that adds the folder. Here too, let's click on the three dots, and let's change the color. For this one, I'll go with a, let's say, a soothing dark green. I like that. And let's click on the three dots again, next to folders, and let's add one more folder. And for this one, we'll call this Read Later. This will contain newsletters or reference materials, basically FYIs that you'd like to catch up on. They're not urgent, and they don't need your immediate attention. Right over here, let's click on the check mark. There we see it in the list. Let's click on the three dots, and here too, let's also change the color. For this one, let's go with a gold color. I'll click on that, and there we see the color applied. Now that we've added these three different folders, we can reorganize them, so the most important ones are front and center. Right here, I see that inbox is fourth on the list, but this is where all of my incoming email lands. So, I'd like this to be at the top of my list. I'll press and hold, and here I can drag that right to the top. Then I have my action items, Read Later, and Waiting On. Now, I'd rather have Waiting On ahead of Read Later. So here, I'll press and hold on this, and let me put it in between action items and Read Later, and there, I now have the order that I like using. Along with the three folders that we created, Outlook also has a number of pre-existing folders, and we're going to use a few of those in this system. Right up on top, we have the inbox, and this is where all of the incoming email lands. This is also where we're going to triage all of the email into our different folders. We also have another folder called the archive, and this is where we'll place most of the emails after we've handled them or after we've responded to them. And we also have another folder called Deleted Items. This is typically where I move archived emails, let's say two to three times a year, or basically anything that's older than six months and I no longer need. Now that we've established this structure, let's go through and let's clean out this inbox together. And as we do that, I'll explain the logic for why we move certain emails into different folders. Now, right up on top, I have the cookie newsletter, and as much as I would love to read it right now, I just don't have the time, but it is something I would like to review. So, let's take this email right here, and then we can drag it over and place it into read later. Next up, I have an email from Grady, and he wants to know if I could pull together a new version of the customer training slide deck. This is an action on me, and it'll also take a little bit of time to pull together this deck. So, I'm going to respond to Grady, letting him know that I received his message, and I'll start working on it, but it's not something that I could do right now. I'll type in my message, and right up above, let's click on send. Now that I've sent my message, I need to remember to follow up on this and actually complete the work. Let's take the message from Grady, and here I'll drag it over into action items. Next up, I have an email from Pradeep, letting me know that my Kevin Cookie Company mugs have shipped. This email has no action item on me, so I could either delete this message right up here, or we can archive it. Now I like archiving messages, that way I keep a record of all these different messages. One shortcut key that you could use to very quickly archive a message on the web, simply press the E key on your keyboard, or if you're using the desktop client, you could press the backspace key. I'll press E, and that archives the message. Next up, I have an email from Alex, and it looks like he wants me to pull together key metrics from last quarter. Now this seems like an action item, but I'm actually not the best person on the team to help with this. Adele is our data analyst, and she'd be a much better fit. Why don't we delegate this to her? Right up on top, I'll click on the forward icon, and let's type in Adele's name. Here she is, Adele Vance, and right down below, I'll type in my message and see if she can pull it together. Now right up on top, let's click on send. Now that I've delegated this to Adele, there's no action on me. So, let's archive this message. I'll press the E key on my keyboard, and that archives it. Next up, I have an email from Diego, and it looks like he has a quick question. Right here, he says, "Are you still planning to present the Outlook tips section during Friday's meeting?" If the email response will take under two minutes, I just recommend responding to it right now. If it'll take longer than that, then we can move it over to the action items folder. In this case, this is a very quick response. So over here, let's click on reply, I'll type in my response, and let's send that to Diego. And there, I've answered the question, and there's no additional action on me. So, with this message selected, let's press E, and that archives the message. Last up, I have an email from Patti Fernandez, my manager, and it looks like there are some updated packaging designs, and she would like me to review them, and also provide some feedback. This will definitely take longer than two minutes, in which case I should follow up on this later. Right up on top, let's click reply all, and just let her know that I received the message, and I'll get back with feedback by the end of the week. Now that I've typed out my message, I'll send this to Patti, but there is a follow-up on me. So over here, I'll take Patti's message, and let's move that over to action items. And just like that, we now have inbox zero. Nice work. You might've noticed that we haven't added anything to waiting on yet. Don't worry, we'll get there. But before we do that, let's start by jumping into action items. Within action items, we can see the two different actions that we triaged here. I like breaking my action items into two different priorities, actions that I'll work on today, and all the actions that I'll work on later. Using pinning or flagging is a good way to separate all these different messages. Here, for example, I have that message from my manager, Patti, and given that she's my manager, this will probably be the most important task. Now right over here, I could pin a message to the top, and that could denote that this needs to be completed as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can also flag a message. These are just different techniques that you could use to make messages stand out more. Now over here, I could turn off the flag or it could turn off the pin, and then it looks like all the other messages. Once you go through and you complete one of the actions and you respond to the question, right up on top, I recommend archiving the message. Here, I'll click on this, and now Grady's ask has been completed. On closer inspection, it appears that Patti hasn't actually shared any of the updated packaging designs, so there's no way I could review or provide feedback. I should have caught that in my first response, but let me follow up again. Here, I'll click on reply, and let me ask her if she could share the packaging designs. Right up here, let's send that to Patti. Now that I've sent that to Patti, there's no more action on me until she responds with all the packaging designs. So over here, I'll take this message from my action items, and let's move it over to waiting on. This way, I can keep track of my request to Patti. If she doesn't respond to me, I'll probably follow up tomorrow just to make sure that she's seen this and that she can share the updated designs with me. I recommend checking the waiting on folder every day just to make sure that people are following up on and completing all the different requests that you have of them. One thing you'll find is typically you'll tend to move things back and forth between action items and waiting on as a task or project is progressing. With waiting on, you can decide when you want to use it. If you work with people who tend to be more unreliable and don't always respond to your requests, you'll probably find that you add them to this folder more often. Sometimes you'll work with people who are completely on top of things, and you may find that you don't actually have to triage their emails to this folder. Even with this system, inboxes can still fill up so fast, in which case you may want to automate some of it. Let's go back up into the inbox. Back in the inbox, there's already another newsletter from the Kevin Cookie Company. These things are like roaches. You get rid of one and another one just appears. The good news is you can also set up rules to help you organize and keep your inbox clean. So right here, I have this newsletter, and I tend not to review them right away. I'd rather place them in a read later, but instead of having me manually triage all these messages, let's see if we could automate all of that. With this message selected, we can right click on it, and right down here, there's the option for rules. We can manage existing rules, or we could create a new rule. Let's click on create. This opens up a dialogue where we can set up our rule. Here it says, always move messages from cookies to this folder, and then I could select the folder where I would like to move all of these newsletters. Now right down here, I could select read later and that'll take care of it. But I do also want to show you the power of rules, so right down here, let's click on more options. Within more options, at the very top, we can set up a name for this rule. Then you could also add a condition or even multiple conditions. Now currently, it's set to coming from someone, it'll move the message. However, you have so many different options. For example, if your name is on the to line, the CC, if the subject includes certain text, certain keywords. Here, you could also have marked with importance or sensitivity, and if we go down, there are more and more options here. I'm just going to keep this simple. I'll say from cookies. Down here, you could also add an action. When I click on this, here too, we have lots of different options for what should happen to this message. You could organize it, you could mark it, you could also route it to a different location. I simply want to move it to a folder. I'll select move to, and right here, I could select my folder. I'll click on read later. Now we could also add additional actions, and you could even add exceptions. When I click on that here, you could select from a large list of different exceptions. Now, one concern I have is, let's say that Patti responds to one of these newsletters. Maybe I'm on the to line or the CC line. I want to make sure that I don't miss this message. So over here, I’ll select this as one of the exceptions. Here too, I could also add more. Then down below, I could choose what should happen. Should it stop processing more rules or should I run the rule now? I'd like to run this rule now so it can clean out my inbox. I'll make sure to check that box. And then down below, let's click on save. And right in the top right-hand corner, let's close out of this view. And look at that, my inbox is now clean again. If I click over into read later, here the rule automatically moved that message into this folder. That makes my life so much easier. Hopefully you now have a solid system to organize your inbox. The key takeaway, get your emails out of your inbox, so that way you always know what needs your attention. A few more quick tips before we wrap up. Try to check your email no more than two to three times a day. That'll help you focus so much better. Also turn off those notifications to avoid all of those constant distractions. If you found this video helpful, please consider subscribing and I'll see you in the next video.