Part of my Getting Things Done master battle plan was to get control of my email.

Some of my email was being filtered, some wasn’t, and my inbox was getting a bit crazy. It took me about three hours, but I have all my domains and all my email accounts fully setup with lots of filter rules.

Those newsletters I’m automatically opted in for when listed in some directories, forums, membership sites – whatever – I finally have all those filtered to go directly to the scrap pile: aka the trash bin.

All my domains with contact forms – those contacts go directly to their own folder for each domain. This separates my visitor contacts away from the inbox mess so they don’t get overlooked.

Receive Paypal payments? Own folder.

PayPal subscription payments? Own folder.

Domain renewals and domain registrar correspondence? Own folder.

All my spam folders are now empty. Trash bins empty. Inboxes are empty. Membership signup info, necessary emails to keep – everything sorted and tucked away safely.

Big job, but I got it done. And if I keep up with adding email filtering rules as I need them – I shouldn’t have to spend a few hours every once in awhile trying to clean it all up .

If you’re not sure how to setup filter rules in your email client, you can try this website for more info:

University of Waterloo – Filtering Email