If you don’t take control of your email then it will control you. It’s that simple. Email bankruptcy, the process of simply deleting everything and starting from scratch, is currently the trendy option but it is a pretty stupid thing to do. Throwing out everything is only going to come back to haunt you when you need that one piece of information that was sitting at the bottom of your inbox, waiting to be found with a simple search.

Thankfully there is a two step process that can give you the all important control you need. The first step might seem a little savage depending on your point of view but the second is simplicity itself.

Step one. Use only one email address. That’s right, no matter how many projects, blogs or companies you only need one email address. Separating your email into different accounts might seem like a good idea but two accounts are twice as much work as one. Having more than one account will lead to chaos in the long run.

Step two. Around 70% of all email is one way or notification email that cannot be replied to. Examples include blog comment notification, mailing lists or purchase confirmations. You can’t reply to this sort of thing so why let it clog up your inbox? Set up rules in your email client to move all of this email into a separate folder, away from your inbox.

Once your inbox only contains email that can be replied to you will find it a lot easier to manage. You can check the other folder whenever you like without it getting in the way of your chosen email checking routine.

Run your email through a good spam blocker, such as the wonderful and free Gmail one, and you’ll have an email system that works for you, not you for it.