Taming the Overflowing Inbox: How to Organize Your Outlook for What Matters Most

The endless stream of emails flooding our inboxes, especially at the start of semester, is a common frustration. Whether it's promotional offers, internal updates, or important messages from your boss or students, the sheer volume can make it difficult to prioritize and respond effectively. The good news is Outlook offers several powerful tools to help you regain control of your inbox and ensure that the most important messages rise to the top.

1. Create Rules for Automating Email Tasks: Outlook allows you to create rules that automatically organize, mark, or re-route incoming messages based on criteria you set, such as sender, subject line, or keywords. For example, you can create a rule to automatically move all newsletters or project updates into designated folders, keeping your main inbox clear.

2. Utilize Categories and Flags: Assign categories to emails based on priority, projects, or topics, and use color codes to differentiate them at a glance. Flags can help you mark emails that require follow-up, ensuring that you don’t lose track of action items in the clutter.

3. Pin Messages: Pinning a message moves it to the top of your inbox and keeps it there until you unpin it, making it easier to find. 

4. Unsubscribe from Unwanted Lists: Some of your email clutter may be advertisements, newsletters, and other communications with outside organizations that you may or may not have done business with in the past. Unsubscribe from those email lists if you don't want those messages anymore. 

5. Set Up Email Alerts and Notifications: You can customize notifications so that you only get alerts for emails from specific contacts or with certain keywords. This way, you won’t be distracted by every incoming message but will still stay on top of what’s essential.

6. Clean Up Your Inbox Regularly: Outlook's 'Clean Up' tool can automatically delete redundant messages from conversations, reducing the clutter. Additionally, scheduling regular times to archive old emails or delete unneeded messages can help maintain a manageable inbox.

7. Leverage Search Folders: Search Folders in Outlook allow you to create virtual folders that display all emails that meet certain criteria, such as “Unread Mail” or “Flagged for Follow Up.” This feature ensures that you can quickly find and address high-priority emails without sifting through your entire inbox.

8. Use Focused Inbox: Outlook’s Focused Inbox feature automatically sorts your emails into two tabs—Focused and Other. Important emails, such as those from your boss, your students, or critical projects, are funneled into the Focused tab, while less critical emails land in the Other tab. You can also manually move messages between tabs to train Outlook on what you deem important. Although Outlook would list the Focused Inbox as their top choice for automatically sorting your emails, we have found various issues with it and caution your use of it without monitoring the Other tab.

By implementing some of these strategies, you can turn your overwhelming inbox into a well-organized, efficient workspace. Instead of being buried under a mountain of emails, you’ll be able to focus on the messages that matter most and maintain a better handle on your daily tasks.

To learn more about your Tufts Outlook email and calendar, refer to the following resources:

• Computer Tips: Email at Tufts - Tufts' online guide with info about basic setup, email forwarding, and more.

• Microsoft's Outlook Help & Learning - Microsoft's own documentation, with pages on creating rules, organizing folders, and more.

• Learn about best practices for organizing your email through online Udemy courses (using your Tufts username and password to access)

• Contacting the 24/7 TTS Service desk if you have issues accessing your email by calling 617-627-3376 or emailing it@tufts.edu.