How to Catch Up with Your Email

Copyright wonk (and Wired columnist) Lawrence Lessig hit upon a novel tactic after spending 80 hours trying to clear out his backlogged inbox: surrender. "Bankruptcy is now my only option," he wrote in a mass message to his correspondence creditors. Here's how Lessig erased his debts and turned over a new leaf.

EditSteps

1. 1
   Organize your email by subject. This way many of your junk mail items and subscription items will line up on top of each other. You will be able to go through and delete all at once, your word of the day emails and your free-cycle reminder messages. Now go back and organize by date received again, and you will have a much easier time finding important notes which require a response from you personally, and finding the emails which you requested important information on.
   
   
   
2. 2
   Collect the email addresses of everyone you haven't replied to. Paste them into the BCC field of a new message you'll send to yourself. Or, you can just reply to them in about one or two sentences. Which is very easy, just get straight to the point, with no long explanations and answer the questions asked (if any) directly. Do not unnecessarily expand your email length.
   
   
   
3. 3
   Write a polite note explaining your predicament. Apologize profusely - Lessig managed five mea culpas in as many paragraphs - and promise to keep up with your email in the future. Try to sound credible. People will no doubt appreciate the fact that you went to the trouble of apologising for replying to emails late because you didn't keep up with it.
   
   
   
4. 4
   Ask for a resend of anything particularly pressing, and offer to give such messages special attention. You never know if you have missed something when you have a build up of emails that you have to reply to, so it's better to be sure than to find out that you missed something really important.
   
   
   
5. 5
   Try to keep up with your emails afterwards. Check it daily, and whenever you are able to get to it. Most mobile phones are able to receive your emails from home now, so if your phone does have the right programme (normally in the 'messaging' section of your mobile), then USE IT!!!