This post is part of the Inbox Reboot series:
Part 1: Why It Matters
Part 2: Keep It Clear
Part 3: Working the System
Part 4: The Magic of Filtering
Part 5: Filtering Beyond the Inbox
Part 6: Managing Multiple Email Addresses
Beyond the Inbox: Where Email Management Really Happens
Filtering your emails into sub-folders is a great start, but sub-folders should be temporary storage, not a long-term solution. Email programs are designed to deliver emails—not manage them.
The real key to email control is moving emails out of your email program and into systems that help you take action, store important information, and keep your digital life organized.
Let’s talk about where emails should go once they leave your inbox.
Getting Emails Out of Your Email Program
Most people don’t realize that emails don’t have to stay in email at all. Depending on your setup, you can:
- Download emails to your hard drive.
- Forward emails to other apps.
- Copy, cut, and paste content into more useful programs.
By removing emails from your inbox and putting them where you’ll actually use them, you eliminate clutter and free up mental space.
Notebooks: The Ultimate Digital Filing System
I love notebooks.
Three of the most popular digital notebook apps today are Evernote, OneNote, and Notion. All three are free, sync across multiple devices, and allow you to organize and retrieve information with ease.
- Evernote is great for quick, searchable notes and web clippings.
- OneNote is powerful for organizing long-term projects and integrates well with Microsoft Office.
- Notion is highly flexible, allowing for deep customization, databases, and task management—all in one place.
I personally use OneNote because of its seamless connection with my workflow, but Notion is gaining popularity for its all-in-one approach to organization. If you’re looking for a notebook system that also functions as a task manager and knowledge base, Notion is worth exploring.
Why Move Emails to a Notebook?
Notebooks let you store actionable emails exactly where you need them.
- Coupons → Pull up on your phone at checkout.
- Articles → Save for later reading.
- Receipts & Order Confirmations → Store with tracking numbers and follow-up reminders.
- Event Planning → Organize emails, clippings, and notes into a single folder.
- Book Lists → Keep reviews, cover images, and links in a dedicated reading list.
- Important Conversations → Save key emails with context for future reference.
If an email requires action—like responding later—you can save it to your notebook with a reminder so you don’t forget.
Pro Tip: When saving an email to your notebook, attach the original email as a file. That way, you have both a readable version and a copy you can open later if needed.
Task Managers: Turning Emails into Action
Your notebook can help you stay organized, but task managers are built for action.
Some great options include:
- Outlook Tasks – One of the most advanced task managers, especially if you already use Microsoft Office.
- ToDoist – A web-based, cross-platform task manager with great flexibility.
- Google Tasks, Trello, Asana – Other excellent task management apps.
- Notion – Functions as both a notebook and a task manager, making it a powerful all-in-one tool.
Many task managers let you drag and drop emails into tasks or forward them directly to your task list.
When Should Emails Go Into a Task Manager?
- Reminders for Coupons & Discounts → Set an alert for when you’ll actually use them.
- Follow-Up Emails → Schedule a reminder to check in after a package is due to arrive.
- Time-Sensitive Actions → If something must be done later, don’t leave it in your inbox—put it in your task manager.
If your life is complex, a combination of a notebook and a task manager might work best. Experiment and see what fits your workflow.
Archiving: The Smart Way to Save Important Emails
If you’ve been using your email program to store important messages indefinitely, you’re running a huge risk. Most cloud backups don’t automatically save emails, and many email programs’ “archive” features are just fancy sub-folders—not real backups.
To properly archive important emails:
- Save them as PDFs. Most email programs let you print to PDF. This format preserves the email exactly as it was sent, including the sender, date, and content.
- Store them securely. Keep PDFs in organized folders on your hard drive or cloud storage.
- Back up your data. Hard drives fail. Make sure you have an off-site backup or cloud storage solution.
Governments and businesses now rely heavily on email for critical documents, including tax information and contracts. Treat your digital records just as carefully as you would paper files.
Don’t Forget Your Sent Emails
Many people archive important emails they receive but forget about those they send. If you ever need proof of an agreement, confirmation, or conversation, your sent emails are just as critical.
Set a recurring reminder to review and archive your sent folder regularly. Your email program will run faster, and you won’t lose anything important.
Automating External Filters
In an earlier post, I mentioned Zapier and IFTTT—two powerful automation tools.
Once you start setting up your email system, watch for tasks you repeat often. These are great candidates for automation.
For example, I use email rules to:
- Send all podcast notifications to a Listening folder in OneNote.
- Automatically save certain emails to my hard drive.
- Flag key emails for follow-up.
Even if you don’t use Zapier or IFTTT, check your email program’s built-in automation features—you might be surprised at what they can do.
The Big Picture: Where Should Your Emails Go?
- Inbox → Immediate Action or Sorting
- Sub-Folders → Temporary Holding
- Notebook (Evernote, OneNote, Notion) → Long-Term Storage & Reference
- Task Manager (Outlook, ToDoist, Notion) → Actions & Reminders
- PDF Archive → Permanent Records
Your goal should always be to move emails out of your inbox and into the right system where they’ll actually help you.
What’s Next?
Juggling multiple email addresses can be a challenge, but it’s also a great way to keep different areas of your life organized. In the next post, we’ll look at how to manage multiple email accounts efficiently without getting overwhelmed.
Until then, start moving emails into better systems—you’ll be amazed at how much calmer your inbox (and your mind) will feel.
Cheers,
Taylen
Next Post: Managing Multiple Email Addresses
I’ve got similar systems for dealing with information, but since 95% of my email is total crap, I don’t bother with organizing it, except into “marked as read” and “marked as not read”. I can winnow 250 emails down to 30-50 actual emails I want to read. But most of those are just digests of mailing lists, and after a quick perusal, I simply move to the next. Only once in a blue moon do I have to save an email, and it gets starred, or sometimes put into a category in case I need it (I have a folder called “Crackpots”. You can imagine what I put there. But it’s nothing compared to the “Credible Threat” folder, which gets sent to the FBI’s cybercrime address.)
Where I need the organization is in my writing. I used to just have folders full of the various clippings, messages, articles, and at least once, a screenshot from a dictionary dated 1785. I was doing my writing in Word, until they went to subscription model, and I switched to Word Perfect for a while. Trouble was, Nerd Perfect wasn’t fully compatible with any other word processor currently in use. There was even a time when I was writing with WordStar on a CP/M based machine, as PC-DOS wasn’t yet a thing, much less Windows. When Microsoft created Word, I jumped on it. This was when Word was a DOS program, and not graphics-based.
But let’s take a leap forward to the present. I do not use Microsoft Office for anything. If I use an office suite, it’s LibreOffice these days. But I rarely use even that anymore. Instead, I use the incredible tool called Scrivener. It’s a total idea processor, having projects that contain everything you use to build whatever it is you’re writing, from a work letter to a novel. If you do research for it, you can save it in a folder associated with the document. Pictures, graphs, text, all can be organized. And with the creator’s companion program Scapple, you can organize your thoughts and show how they interconnect with one another, and organize those idea maps with your document.
For the document, let’s assume it’s a novel, you can put each chapter, or each free-standing part of a chapter, into its own nested file in the document. Need to move a chapter, or a logical piece you divided from a chapter to a new spot in the chronology? Move the chapter file in the nesting tree. No cutting or pasting needed. What ever you designate to be an atomic chunk, something that stands alone and needs to be indivisible, you put in its own “chapter” file.
Editing is downright easy. Much of my editing is moving things around. Sometimes I get all nuclear on a chapter and split that atom, moving the logical pieces of that chapter into their own standalone chapter files, then rearranging them until they flow properly together.
After you’ve done the final edit, and everything is as you want it to be, you can render the entire project into a properly-formatted manuscript, for emailing and/or printing. The first time I did this, it just cemented Scrivener as my word processor of choice. I used to work for days, even weeks, getting the manuscript into the correct format for whatever publisher I was trying to put it in front of.
Since then, I found the utility of the “distraction free” word processor. Now, if I’m having difficulty working on my PC due to emails, messages, or other noise vying for my attention, I’d pull out the AlphaSmart Neo 2 word processor and write the chapter giving me issues. It’s basically a keyboard, a small, text-only screen comprising only a few lines of text, and several memory slots to represent files. I could fit about 25 pages of text into each slot, so I would put a chapter in a slot. I would do this writing AWAY from my PC. I even took it to a local diner, put earbuds in an MP3 player, and went to work. I literally couldn’t get distracted by email, or doing a bit of browsing.
Then, at home, I’d plug in the AlphaSmart’s USB cable, and plug the other end into my PC. Then I go into Scrivener, open a new chapter file, and tell the AlphaSmart to send. All it does is “type” the text from the AlphaSmart into the word processor file, just as if I were typing it by hand. No formatting at that point, JUST the text. If I had more than one memory slot with new text in them, I’d just do the same thing for each one: open a new chapter file, open the successive memory slot, and upload it into the PC. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then I’d clear the memory slots in the AlphaSmart, ready to do it all over again.
The AlphaSmart Neo 2 is no longer made. The company went under in 2012. But I bought more than one, when they were dirt cheap on eBay. I have EIGHT of them. Six are mothballed in a sealed box. Two are in use. I had to do a fair bit of restoration work on these devices, mostly replacing the coin cell battery that maintained the memory. But a couple had problems with the main battery compartment, mostly batteries having been left in them, causing leakage. I had to replace wires going to the motherboard, clean the crud off the battery terminals, and in one case, rebuild the plastic the terminals were mounted to. It’s easy to forget the batteries in these things, they’re good for 700 hours, which is phenomenal for a thing powered by 3 AA batteries.
Scrivener and Scapple are sold by “Literature & Latte”, and are not expensive.