Even if you turned your vacation auto-response on, too many emails seemed to slip through your filter. Now you're wondering if you really did take time off or whether it was all a dream. I know people who refuse to take vacation because they don’t want to tackle the piles of emails waiting for their return.

A friend of mine has a unique way of dealing with emails that have gathered when he’s been out for a while. The first thing he does when he opens his mail is to delete everything in it. His theory is that if something was important, the sender will follow-up to ensure that he got the message and if it wasn’t important, he doesn’t need to waste his time.

If  you don't have the intestinal fortitude of my friend but you love the idea of an empty email in-basket, try the modified approach that I use:

1). Open your email application and create a new folder. Call it anything you want – OldMail, Pending, Defer etc.

2). Quickly browse the subject and sender lines of your in-basket, however, don’t open any of them. Note any that Must be answered today. Use a very stringent criteria, such as only those from your boss. Don’t be mislead by those that are labeled urgent. This is the sender’s priority, not yours.

3). Take all the emails that you didn’t select in step 2 and move them to your Pending folder.

4). You should now be left with a very small list of items which need an immediate response. Tackle those and feel the sense of relief and accomplishment that ensues.

5). Close your email application and move on to the top priority project you’ve determined needs your attention today.

6). Schedule a time to open your Pending folder, maybe twice a week. Set an arbitrary date and delete any message older than that date. Because email is so easy to send, it is also very perishable. Just like a newspaper, if it’s a couple of days old, it’s value is close to zero.