Inbox Management (in Outlook)

Question

I've gone back and forth between having an organized inbox and having an inbox with absolutely everything I've received in it.

Would you recommend leaving everything in an inbox, or organize it? If you organize it, is there any method to your madness or possibly an Outlook (2003) plug-in to aid in this task?

For what it's worth, I feel way more productive with everything in my inbox, grouped by date. I feel like a spend way more time doing inbox management any other way.

Answer 1

I would recommend following the inbox zero approach advocated by 43 folders. Joel Spolsky apparently uses it and a lot of people feel it's a great way of decluttering and organising your email life :-).

Answer 2

If you don't want to actually clear out your inbox, you could use a good search utility like Google Desktop, Yahoo Desktop Search (is that what it's called) or my current favorite, Xobni.
With these tools you don't have to worry about where you put the mails you saved. Just save them all and let the tools find it.