I still use Outlook for my work life, and actually I find it quite a well made program. One feature I don’t use, as long as my inbox goes, is filters. I bet some people are reaching for the phone to call the medics on me, but read on, let me explain.
The reason that I don’t use filters is that I loose track of stuff that way. If you have many folders, and everything that would be in your inbox gets sorted, you will click on a folder and process that email. You may do another one, but after a while, you will be tired and say “oh, only one email in the next one, I’ll do that tomorrow”. And this is where the problems start. To get rid of this problem, I do the following.
I have all mail come to my inbox and at a glance I take a look at all of them. My rule is, that nothing can go out of my inbox until I’ve dealt with it. I either give it to someone else, or reply myself. This is sort of like GTD, but there is no option to defer it to another date.
Having stuff in my inbox folder actually bugs me so much, I will be inclined to do it, rather then leave it for later, and even if I do leave it for later, I will do it in 24 hours, not three or four days.
