I am certain that I am not the most productive at using email, but I am pretty happy with the simple system that I have come up with.  It has two key components.  The first is to answer the bulk of emails when I first open them.  This is possible because most emails require only a very short response and often only a minimal action (confirming a meeting, making an introduction, etc).  There is a temptation (at least for me) to read such emails and think that I will get back to them later.  But I won’t, so I try to answer right away. Also, I have found that it takes at least the same time to read the email again a second time, so the first reading if you don’t answer right away would essentially be a waste of time.

The second component is to use colored flags to mark those emails that require a more involved action or longer response.  I use only a few colors to keep things simple.  Primarily one for all things Union Square Ventures and another for all things personal.  I then try not to let the “for follow up” emails get above 50. In Outlook it is then very easy to just look at emails requiring follow up and to sort those by date, sender or flag color.  My only misgiving with this approach is that there does not seem a way to assign flags on the BlackBerry, so my system does not work as well when I am answering emails from my BlackBerry.  Right now if an email requires a longer response, I mark it as “Unread” on my Blackberry so that I can get to it later, but this requires a second step of then flagging once it gets into Outlook.

P.S. Just in case someone plans to propose email folders, I tried folders for a long time but find they require too much overhead to maintain.