How I manage my email

part of David A. Buser's website

Turn on automatic CC

Actually, automatic BCC would be better, but this isn't supported in Outlook. I'm trying out a product called Auto BCC to see if this can do the job.

This turns my inbox into a flow of all email both in and out -- sort of like what Gmail does with their inbox.

Flag items for follow-up

As close to real-time as possible, I will scan items that arrive in my inbox and decide if followup is needed. Sometimes, that includes emails that I've sent to others (but that I want to follow up on, in case the other person doesn't get back to me).

Un-flag items as follow-up completed

As newer messages in a thread come in, or when I follow up on an item, I'll find previous items in the thread and un-flag them.

Expunge unflagged items

As often as convenient, I'll expunge unflagged items (moving them to quarterly archive folders). The goal is to only ever have one page of email in my inbox.

Work from bottom (oldest) up

Periodic thread cleanup