Some people comment that my e-mail inbox at the office is always empty or fairly low in e-mails, so thought I'd share my approach.
I delete spam (duh) or e-mails of only slightly lesser value after reading them. I keep just a few weeks' worth of e-mails in my Deleted box, in case it was more valuable than I thought.
I delete almost all of the more valuable e-mails as soon as I respond to them. However a copy is retained in my Sent items folder automatically. I keep about six months' worth of e-mails there. Sometimes I can also use this as a trick to keep a possibly valuable e-mail around a bit longer than the Deleted box. I'll just say "Thanks!" in my final reply to the e-mail chain... it's both friendly and registers it into the Sent items box.
If an e-mail truly has long-term value, then I make a separate folder and drag it there.
You might recognize the risk inherent if I delegated a task to someone. For example if I forward an e-mail to Ken and ask "Would you please handle this?" By deleting the e-mail I'm trusting that Ken will be responsible, since I'll have no reminder to follow-up with him. Occasionally this has come back to bite me, but not nearly as often to cancel the peace of mind I get from an empty inbox.
Likewise I risk accidentally deleting something that I should have kept. Again, this rarely happens and the satisfaction of the empty inbox is more than enough.
What this means is that the inbox only contains the e-mails I have yet to act upon - in other words, it's like my to-do list. This is another benefit because I rarely have to try to remember what I have to do, it's plainly there in front of me and makes prioritizing my day a cinch.
Now it's off for another productive day of pressing the delete key!
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