Steven Robbins here. Welcome to the Get It Done Guy's quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

Managing email continues to bog us down. Get It Done Guy listeners write in regularly asking how to handle too much email.

Today, I'll be sharing some of my best tips on how to keep your inbox under control.

First, pretend I have long gray hair, a mighty oaken staff, and years and years of email wisdom,

for I've been using email longer than you. How long? That's such an impolite question.

Let's just say that if you think domain names belong in email addresses, you're a latecomer to this particular

party. So I've been through all the how do I manage email learning curves, how to manage

emotion in email, how to manage too much email, and stay sane, how to cover your butt with

innocent seeming status updates instead of obnoxious BCCs. We'll tactfully skip over the part

where I learned about never,

ever, ever, ever sending cyber romance emails and the fact that someone somewhere always saves

a copy of every message that you've ever sent. That belongs in my memoir and I want Zach Efron.

Are you listening, Zach, to play the part of Steaver in the movie version.

So, here are my six tricks to wrangle your email inbox into submission and keep it from taking

over your life.

Tip number one, manage your inbox, don't empty it.

In my 2008 episode on keeping your inbox empty, I shared a great tip for handling email

by using a pencil and paper.

It's a great technique, works extremely well,

and I use it daily. But that was four years ago. Today, there's simply too much email to keep

your inbox completely empty. If you handle every message that comes in, you can be sure you're

wasting a lot of time, because much of that email isn't relevant to your priorities.

...