In my forever battle to beat back my (Outlook) Inbox, I’m in the middle of a tweak that I’m enjoying.
I switched over to show all conversations as “threaded” conversations. This is standard in Gmail and is the default on my iPhone but I’ve never done it in Outlook and had turned it off on my iPhone (it’s on again).
It’s taken some getting used to, but one week in I’m finding getting through my Inbox feels easier and faster, and overall it’s less work to keep track of things.
The way you do this on Outlook is under the “View” menu, click on “Show Conversations.” As a bonus click on “Show Messages from Other Folders” and then you’ll see your own sent replies as well as any filed messages (if you file into folders, which I don’t).
It takes some getting used to, especially because in Outlook there’s no “RE:” in the subject line, so everything feels like a new message. That’s confusing but otherwise I like it.
I’ve tried the whole the-way-to-get-less-email-is-to-send-less-email approach (per this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW3RHylSc0s) and found it to be hugely successful. One additional big benefit is that – if I’m in a meeting and know that I could write you an email response to something non-meeting related, but that I really should call you later – I don’t bother paying attention to the email and instead focus on the meeting…because I know we’ll talk later as it is. This has really allowed me to be more mentally present and effective in meetings, while again reducing my email load.