Email Pro Tip #5: Triage Your Mail on the Go

I receive between 100 and 1,000 business-related e-mails per day. Out of necessity, over the last few years I’ve developed a numbers of systems that help me manage my inbox effectively. This is the third in a series of posts describing the systems I utilize to stay on top of my inbox.

TriageKeeping on top of e-mail on your smartphone helps you maximize productivity during “down time”on the road and minimize the amount of time you’re spending managing your inbox when you’re at the office. A smartphone keyboard, however, is only really suitable for composing short messages, so you want to focus your on-the-go inbox management on triaging your e-mails. For those that subscribe to the “Getting Things Done” system, while you’re on the go you want to use tools that help you focus on the “Process” phase of the GTD workflow.

Triage is a recently-released $1.99 iPhone app that focuses on exactly this task. Triage doesn’t replace your normal e-mail client, but complements it by providing a simple interface for triaging your e-mails on the go.

With Triage, your new messages appear as a stack of cards. You flick messages up to archive, down to keep them in your inbox for later, and tap on a message to compose a short reply.

You’ll find this simple app is surprisingly effective at helping you keep on top of your e-mails on the go.

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