Use these tips to tame your inbox

Email is a blessing and a curse these days. With so many colleagues working in different places, people have come to rely on this electronic filing cabinet more than ever. It’s easy to let both unopened mail and to-dos pile up until you can’t find anything.

These TechRepublic Premium resources will help you clear out the trash that has been accumulating and get ahead of the next round of work coming your way. In addition to organizing tips, you’ll find email templates to cover messages that you need to send frequently. Why type the same text over and over when you can store it in a template?

Finally, this electronic communication policy will set the foundation for best practices for email in general.

Do you know how to search for email older than a certain date? What about tags and folders — do you use those tools for organizing your email? You’ll find that advice and more in this list of tips for cleaning up your inbox and putting good habits in place to avoid this problem in the future.

If there are any emails that you can write by heart, those are prime candidates for templatizing. Instead of repeating yourself over and over, use these templates to automate the process. This could include security reminders, welcome notes to new employees or how-tos for common tools. These basic templates make it easy to handle the most common types of communications.

The end of the year is a good time to remind team members about the code of conduct for electronic communications, whether the medium is email, Slack or other collaboration tools. This TechRepublic Premium resource covers privacy, confidentiality and security as well as the relevant laws and company policies that apply to electronic communications.