How To Prioritize Emails In Gmail And Outlook With Time Management

Email Prioritization and Time Management

Because emails are an integral part of business, successful prioritization of messages is key. After all, the last thing you want is to get distracted by your company’s email newsletter when there’s an urgent message from your boss awaiting your reply.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to put an effective prioritization strategy in place, especially if you don’t know where to begin. You can certainly use tools like Gemini in Gmail or AI for Outlook email to help, but you still need to manage the remainder.

The time management techniques you see below are often used to handle tasks but also give you efficient methods for prioritizing emails.

In addition to using these techniques with Gmail and Outlook, you’ll learn how Clean Email can enhance the method you choose.

Eisenhower Matrix (Urgent/Important Matrix)

The Eisenhower Matrix uses four quadrants to sort emails as they arrive. This helps you determine which messages to handle right away, which can wait, and which can be deleted altogether.

Here are the quadrants:

• Do: Emails that are both urgent and important.
• Delay/Defer: Emails that are not urgent but important.
• Delegate: Emails that are urgent but not important.
• Delete: Emails that are neither urgent nor important.

To sort messages into these groups effectively, you can use the built-in features of Gmail and Outlook but also quickly spot related messages with Clean Email.

In Gmail, you can use stars and icons. Because you can customize which ones you use, you can easily set up a system for marking messages as they arrive. Then, simply use the stars or icons to take care of the emails per the quadrants.

In Outlook, you can use flags which allow you to assign due dates. This is ideal for emails you plan to Do by flagging them for Today or Delay by flagging them for a future time. You can then simply forward those you want to Delegate and remove those you can Delete.

In Clean Email, you can use Smart Folders which are pre-made filters that collect related emails for you. For instance, use the folders for Top Senders for messages you should Do, Messages with a future date for emails you Delay, You are CC-ed for messages you Delegate, and Messages from "no reply" for emails you Delete.

Pareto Analysis (80/20 Rule)

The Pareto Analysis is a method for identifying the 20 percent of emails that provide 80 percent of value or impact. Once you prioritize these messages, you can filter out the remaining emails.

In Gmail, you can use labels and in Outlook, you can use categories to mark the 20 percent.

📌 For example, you can create a label or category named “Urgent” or “Do Now” and assign it to those most impactful messages during your email triage. Once you take care of those emails, you can sort or filter and forward or remove those that remain.

In Clean Email, you can take advantage of Cleaning Suggestions to quickly manage those remaining messages. The recommendations are based on your previous or the most common actions. They help you archive, trash, or mark groups of messages and clean your Gmail inbox or Outlook mailbox at the same time.

Getting Things Done (GTD)

The Getting Things Done technique follows a structured approach to capture, clarify, organize, and prioritize messages which also helps manage email overload.

With GTD, you can follow these simple steps:

1. Delete the emails that have no value and just take up space.
2. Apply the two-minute rule by taking care of those emails you can complete in two minutes or less.
3. Archive or file those emails you want to keep for reference or support using labels or folders.
4. Organize the remaining messages that require you to follow up with an action or those you’re waiting for something on.

For this step in Gmail, you can again use labels and in Outlook, you can use folders. For instance, you can set up labels or folders for “Action” and “Waiting” so you can easily spot them when needed.

In Clean Email, you can keep newsletters and marketing messages from crowding your inbox and overshadowing priority emails. With Unsubscriber, you can remove yourself from mailing lists in bulk or temporarily pause subscriptions. These are excellent features unique to Clean Email’s unsubscribe tool.

Additional Methods and Tools for Prioritizing Emails

With any of the time management techniques above, you can use additional methods and tools for email prioritization. These additions are how to prioritize time management of your inbox but not lose sight of the time you need for other tasks.

Time Blocking

With time blocking, you set a specific time frame to manage your emails. For example, you might block an hour on your calendar in the morning and another in the afternoon. You then only work on emails during those times. This helps to improve focus and prevent distractions, not just for inbox management, but your other duties as well.

Once you create the time blocks, you can use the time management techniques and email tools described earlier to first handle messages based on priority, urgency, or importance and then filter the rest.

For emails you want to defer to a later time block, both Gmail and Outlook provide a snooze feature. This allows you to pick a snooze time and see the message at the top of your inbox when that time comes.

In Clean Email, you have an even better way to manage non-urgent messages in the form of Read Later. With this preset folder, you can either manually or automatically direct emails to it. Then, when your next time block arrives, just open the Read Later folder to take care of those deferred messages or read a scheduled digest sent to your email.

Automated Tools and Filters

One of the best, time-saving ways to prioritize emails as they arrive is using automations. With tools like filters and rules, you can open your inbox and see your messages already organized for you. For instance, you can automatically flag important messages, label or move deferred emails, and delete unwanted messages without any manual intervention.

In Gmail, you have filters and in Outlook, you have rules. You can base your filter or rule on the currently selected message or create it from scratch in the settings.

In Clean Email, you have a similar feature called Auto Clean. With it, you can use an existing email or an extensive set of conditions to locate matching messages and then apply the action you want.

Wrap-Up

Now that you know how to make an email urgent in Gmail and how to prioritize emails in Outlook, you can select a time management technique that’ll work for you and apply it to your inbox to better organize your day for productivity.

And remember that with Clean Email, you can stay on top of your inbox using the web, desktop (macOS), and mobile apps for iOS and Android, without limited or different features depending on device. You can even combine AI with Clean Email to maximize your productivity and take email prioritization to the next level.