Email overload

So, a while back I was getting hundreds of emails a day, competing deadlines and needs. Information was arriving verbally, orally, by paper and email. Partly, I guess because my job is so varied, I'm a lecturer, I'm a manager, I'm a researcher, I'm a mentor. Thus, tradional business solutions didn't seem to fit my role and job profile. 

Of course, I've increased time actually speaking to people and asking them not to email me, but as I'm connected to lots of different people this doesn't work in the long term.

Then, I tired Getting Things Done, with Evernote and The Secret Weapon.

Basically, can the email reply be done in 2 minutes, if not then tag it and store it for later.

The two big problems I found were that I was really just moving a large in box into a large do it later box, and that I was spending large amounts of time tagging emails, it didn't feel intuitive.

Email zero and bankruptcy seemed like the next logical place, but again works well for business for less so for a complex role like mine. 

So, to today. I'm going to try and blend all of the above.

Using my work exchange email I've set up the following folder:

This Week

Answer

Read

Hold

Wunderlist

Archive

In parallel I'm using Wunderlist to structure work into projects, tasks and finish.

I'll give it a month and report back...

Here goes....