I had a scary experience yesterday… I couldn’t login to my hotmail account, somehow whole process became endless loop – followed by error messages!

That was a panic-act experience… I have used that email last 15 years and archived a huge amount of information! – Finally at the evening I managed to login – after numerous attempts.

What to do now? How to secure important mails – use more effectively account, take a backup etc – but how to do this? I have unsubscribed  a lot emails, but still the daily amount of emails in the inbox is too many.

After googling and asking around I have found my coming strategy based on the following facts and information

1. Clean my inbox daily, using 4D-strategy

* delete it – I can delete probably 50% or more of coming emails at once
* do it – if the email needs action and action takes less than 2 minutes – I do it
* delegate it – if someone else can do it – or do it better -  I delegate it
* defer it – if I can’t do anything above -  I move the email action folder.

2. After I have cleaned inbox, I’m going through action folder – daily

* I go through all the mail here and take action with those I can
* After I have done it – I either archive email or delete it

3. Backing up my archives and other folders

* Here I am still like “a bambi on the ice” and hope someone can tips me what is the easiest and best way to do it.

Now I’m working to put my plan to action. Cleaning up inbox and all other folders in my hotmail account… This will take a while to be done, but when at the same time starts to work with my strategy – I see little light in the end of the tunnel. And while I’m working with my inbox and folders, I’m listening the next weeks song: Massive Attack – Pray For Rain