Most system administrators receive more email than they know what to do with. If you don't manage your email, email will manage you. Get control over your email and you'll be a long way toward regaining control over your time.
Your inbox is a lousy way to manage your to do list.
The goal is to get to an empty inbox. To do that, all actions you take on an email must end with either deleting or filing the message. To that end, I recommend a project that involves handling each message in one of these ways: filter, delete unread, read and process, or do and delete.
Filter. Use filtering software to pre-process your email and automate many tasks.
Delete unread. Certain kinds of messages can be deleted safely without reading.
Read and process. Whether the email needs to be read, forwarded, recorded in an organizer or request tracker, or filed, make sure you complete the task and remove it from your Inbox. Don't let it linger.
Do and delete. If a task can be done in a few minutes, do it now then delete the message.
To deal with the backlog you may have accumulated until now, I recommend that you save it somewhere and forget about it. If a message was really important, someone would have come after you. Email is ephemeral. The older a message gets, the less value it has.
