Let's face it: if you think about how to organize your emails, chances are you receive a ton of them. The average number of emails an office worker receives per day is 121, according to DMR. And while there is a shift of communication to instant messaging (e.g. Slack) or project management tools like Asana or Trello, the good old email is here to stay — at least for the foreseeable future.

So, how do we tackle this slew of messages flooding our inbox? We can't just leave them unattended, can we? And where do they go once we've dealt with them?

Overcategorizers Anonymous

In the past, I was meticulous about sorting my emails. Everything had to have its place. I had a complex setup of categories, sub-categories, even sub-sub-categories. Every company I'd been in touch with had its own designated folder. How very German of me.

My train of thought was simple: instead of spending minutes painstakingly looking for a lost email, it's much easier to browse a perfectly organized folder and see the whole history of communication on a specific topic.

Now, guess how many times I've used these folders in the past twelve months?

Yup. Not once.

Because the search function of my email client is so quick and powerful, I haven't once felt the need to sift through my categories in search of the one mail I'm looking for. I spent all this time categorizing and not once did I ask myself if I actually need categorization.

Time Not Well Spent

The busier my job got, the less time I had to categorize. This lead to a bloated inbox with hundreds and, later, thousands of uncategorized emails. I completely lost track of which emails had already been attended to and which hadn't.

My own system was failing me: I simply didn't have the time to uphold it anymore. It needed to go.

Categories, folders, labels – they are tools. If your tool hinders your progress instead of fueling it, you have to cast it aside. There is no price for best-organized inbox.

Look at these two graphs:

Which of these two actions do you perform more often? Managing^[1] emails or looking for past emails? For me, it's the former by a long shot. The best way to increase my efficiency is to pursue Graph B and cut down the time dedicated to each mail.

Three Purposes of Emails

But first, let's zoom out a bit. Every email serves a purpose. It's either information to be absorbed, it triggers a reply, or it's a task you need to tackle.

📄 Information

Most emails are simple FYIs. It's information you need to process, no other action required. Once you have absorbed the information, the email has served its purpose. Even if you have to reference this information at a later date, it's much better to write it down elsewhere — a notebook, a note-taking software, a wiki, or a Word document.

💬 Reply

Since email is, in theory, a tool for bi- or multilateral communication, many mails require a reply. If you're not in customer service (and not even then!), you don't need to reply to emails right away. That is especially true if they need a more thorough and thought-out answer.^[2] Snoozing or tagging emails for a later reply is helpful so that nothing slips through the cracks.

✅ Task

It's also possible that mails want you to actually do something (boo!). While there are plenty of great ways to manage tasks, your email inbox is not it. If the email triggers a task (but not a reply) add it to your to-do list and throw the actual email away.

So What Is the Best Way?

Let me preface this question by saying the best system to organize your emails is one that helps you. Yes, boring, I know, but if you need a gazillion categories to work efficiently, more power to you! If you leave all your emails just sitting in the inbox, that's fine, too.

There are, however, a few tricks you can use to weed out time-wasters that unnecessarily clutter up your process.

Clean Up Your Inbox

Imagine opening your physical mailbox to find a new letter. You open the envelope, read the letter — and throw it right back through the mailbox slot. Pointless much? Still, this is the way a majority of us handle our email inbox. It becomes a graveyard for mails we've already dealt with.

To me, the inbox is restricted to emails I haven't had the chance to manage.

Once I do tackle an email, there are three steps:

1. Read the mail
2. Do something with it (acknowledge, document, reply, forward, snooze)
3. Archive or delete it

Be Trigger-Happy

If you don't need an email anymore, delete it. This is not only great for keeping your mailbox clean but also advisable for data protection reasons^[3]. If there is a justifiable reason to retain this mail, put it in a separate archive folder but be sure to move it out of your inbox.

Reduce Categories

Take a long, hard look at what categories/labels you really need. In reference to the graph above: if you spend more time maintaining categories than actually using them, it's time to re-evaluate their usefulness.

If a category can easily be replicated by an automatic filter or a smart search query it serves no additional, real purpose. Sorting emails manually should be reserved for categories a machine can't assign.

My System

So how do I manage my emails?

The system I came up with is a hybrid of Inbox Zero and a project planning method called "Now, Next, Later".

With that, I drastically reduced the number of categories from a whooping 64 to a manageable ... one. Two if you count the inbox.

In that, you have three buckets:

Now (Inbox)

My Now bucket lives in my inbox. I typically don't leave the office without an empty inbox so this makes sure that urgent matters don't get thrown under the bus.

So whenever I see a read email in my inbox I know: this is something I should be taking care of – and fast.

Next (Snooze)

Gmail has this handy feature that allows you to 'snooze' emails. You can define a date at which the mail gets thrown back into your inbox. If you know that an email will be relevant, say, next week, snooze it until week. If you have time to tackle it tomorrow, snooze until tomorrow!

There are two great strategies for using the snooze button:

• Set a recurring time slot each week ("Friday at 2PM is when I manage emails")
• Snooze to when you have the time ("I'll have to time to care of mails tomorrow!")

If your mail provider doesn't have a snooze function, you can create a 'Next' category or label instead.

Later (Category)

Some mails are interesting but not time-critical, like an interesting newsletter or an article that someone shared. These typically go to the one category that I use, the 'Later' category.

If you reserve a certain time slot each day or week to tackle emails and you're running out of mails in the 'Now' or 'Next' buckets, it's great to take a look at the mails in the Later category.

Flowchart

In order to visualize, I made this handy dandy flowchart:

tl;dr

• Only use the categories you really need and use regularly
• If a reply takes two minutes or less, answer right away
• If the email triggers a task (but not a reply) put it on your to-do list and archive it right away
• If there's no justifiable purpose to retain an email, delete it
• Find a system that works for you, don't work for a system!

Image Credit

• Header photo by Alex Perz on Unsplash
• Kitten image by Andrii Podilnyk on Unsplash

If you ask one hundred frequent writers to name their favorite writing tool, you'll get one hundred and one recommendations.

Here's some breaking news: what software you choose doesn't matter. What does is squeezing the right words out of your brain. That, and structuring your prose in a way that underlines the point. Most writing software distracts you from just that by offering dozens of features that may be great for formatting but are ultimately irrelevant for writing.

That's where Markdown comes into play.

What Is Markdown?

Simply put, Markdown is a markup language. Yep, that's why the name is so clever. So what's that? In short, it's a language that uses special characters (or tags) to structure information like text, images, tables — and so on. The beauty of markup languages is that both machines and humans can read it without effort.

Those who have dabbled in web development know the arguably most widely used markup language, HTML. Heck, it's even in the name: HyperText Markup Language. And even if you haven't, markup languages are commonly used in message boards (BBCode), scientific writing (LaTeX), wikis (Wikitext), or even Instant Messaging (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp).

Here's how you'd make a text bold in different markup languages:

You see? It's not rocket science. You have a certain tag that indicates bold text begins (e.g. <b> in HTML) and ends (</b> in HTML). Most markup languages — and Markdown, too — use the same string of characters for "opening" and "closing" such a tag.

So, is it only something for geeks? No, not quite. There are plenty of uses for just about everyone who writes longer texts.

Why not Word?

But what's the point? Why go through the hassle of learning a markup language if you can just select the text, hit bold and be done with it?

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but there are three heavy drawbacks:

• You can't — at first glance — see what text is formatted and in which way
• Taking off your mouse hand off the keyboard disrupts your typing^[1]
• Most importantly, plenty of options to distract you from what you should be doing: writing and structuring your text

Writing, Structuring, and Layout

Imagine you have the perfect idea and outline for a text you're going to write. There are three steps that follow:

1. Writing
2. Structuring
3. Layout

An alarming number of people confuse the latter two. Structuring your text isn't something visual, it's about organizing your writing. It's fleshing out what elements you have, the headings, emphases, images, and references — and not how they look.

Layout is what comes last. Why? Because it's distracting. Obsessing about finding the perfect font to suit your tone takes your focus away from what really matters: forging the strongest possible prose. This clip from BoJack Horseman sums it up perfectly.

This is how most websites work: you use a markup language (like HTML) to structure the content and apply the visual design later (via CSS). Writing should be, in principle, the same.

Markdown is the perfect tool to separate structuring and layout because it's stupid, distraction-free, and portable.

Three Reasons Why Markdown Is the Bomb

Markdown Is Stupid (in a Good Way)

There's not a lot of things you can do with Markdown. You can add headings, emphases (bold, italics, underline, strikethrough), lists, images, tables, quotes, footnotes, links, code blocks, and horizontal rules.

That's it. That's the complete list. There are no colors, no fonts, no text sizes, no way to align text, no margins, paddings, or line heights.

That also means it's super easy to master. With the help of a Markdown cheat sheet, you'll learn it in a matter of minutes and know it by heart in a matter of days.

Markdown Is Distraction-Free

Humans aren't very good at resisting distraction. Having a full-fledged word processor like Word or LibreOffice isn't ideal because it invites the temptation of fiddling with the layout instead of focusing on what's important: writing.

Crafting compelling prose is a difficult task that needs deep focus. And in order to do this kind of "deep work", we need a toolset that takes everything away but the bare necessities. Because of its strictly limited feature set, Markdown is the ideal language for distraction-free writing.

Markdown Is Portable

What you need to use Markdown is:

• a plain text editor (Windows Notepad or Apple Notes will do)
• an interpreter (something that makes **bold** text bold)

There are specialized Markdown editors that can do both.^[2] Since Markdown is a language, you don't need any additional scripts or plug-ins. It also means it's compatible to all operating systems and devices. If you can input text, it'll support Markdown. In theory, you could even use Markdown on a piece of paper (although the interpreting part would be difficult).

There's plenty of software available that can interpret and format Markdown, there's a free cross-platform application, an iOS app, an Android app, one that runs in your browser, and even a Word add-in.

A lot of other writing, journaling, and note-taking applications already support Markdown. Maybe even software you use on a daily basis. Try putting text between two pairs of **asterisks**. and see what happens. if it becomes bold, congratulations! The software supports Markdown.

Others are notably missing, including Microsoft Word^[3], Google Docs, and Apple Pages.

You're in Good Company!

Most technical documentation today is written in Markdown (including that of Apple and Microsoft) but it's not only for geeks. An increasing number of non-tech people — such as myself — are jumping on board.

With an ever-increasing list of software that not only supports Markdown but is build around it, abandoning clunky word processors in favor of a distraction-free Markdown-based app has never been easier.

I switched to Markdown for all my writing and I never want to go back. As someone who writes a very diverse range of things from professional briefings to articles on music production to song lyrics to, well, this blog^[4], Markdown is my Swiss Army knife.

It can be yours, too. So why don't you try it, if just for a day?

Image Credit

• Photo by Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash

When was the last time you deliberately used the Caps Lock key? You know, that little thing above the Shift key? The one that makes you yell on the internet or seem like someone who shouldn't be left around computers unsupervised? If your typing habits are anything like mine, the answer is, well, never.

As for any controversial thing on the internet, there's a movement against it. In 2006, the late Pieter Hintjens started a campaign called CAPSoff with the goal of abolishing the much-hated key once and for all. A quick look at Amazon's top-selling keyboards^[1] reveals that he didn't succeed.

That's not to say that the Caps Lock key doesn't have its proponents. Fields like engineering make heavy use of capital letters and some keyboard layouts (like the Swiss German one) utilize it as a secondary dead key / modifier. And then there's Sean Wrona. He is one of the world's fastest typists, and he uses Caps Lock instead of Shift to capitalize letters. The absolute madman.^[2] But do these uses really justify a prominent position on every standard keyboard layout?

Usage Data — or Lack Thereof

Now, my usual approach would be to bring cold, hard numbers into the matter. The team at IO Technologies tracked their keyboard usage for a week. The result? Caps Lock was the least used key with only 0.1 % of keystrokes. Now, the low sample size (eight participants) makes this anything but a broad study. If we did the same analysis at an engineering company, results would look way different.

Sadly, a comprehensive analysis of key usage is nowhere to be found. And so, the mystery of which keys are really needed and which are relics from the typewriter era — that made their way into modern computer keyboards by sheer force of habit alone — remains unsolved.

But even if data suggested that a sizable chunk of the population used the Caps Lock key, it's not a feasible substitute for standard, single-letter capitalization (sorry, Sean!). So, let's judge it by its main purpose: reducing finger strain while typing longer stretches of capitalized text.

Lock Keys and Placing

All keys can be grouped into various functions. The Caps Lock key is part of the lock keys subset that can toggle certain modes of the keyboard. The idea is that you press a lock key, do what you need with the altered layout, then revert to standard mode. No part of this process makes it necessary for a lock key to be placed in an easily reachable spot. If you'd have to switch modes frequently, the purpose of a lock key would be defeated.

Its siblings, Num Lock and Scroll Lock respect that and are positioned rather unobtrusively. Caps Lock, however, is the black sheep of the family. Its position next to the left little finger (using a standard ten-finger system) makes it one of the most-prominently placed non-letter keys^[3] on the whole keyboard. In that, it's easier to reach than keys like Backspace, Return or Control.

Imagine if your car had the Disable Airbag button on the steering wheel.^[4]

Users of the strangely popular text editor Emacs (that relies heavily on the Control key) suffer from repetitive strain injury so frequently it's also referred to as Emacs pinky. Their solution? Swap Control with a key that's both easier to reach and completely obsolete. Guess which?

But, but ... My Workflow!

But does it hurt anybody? Surely there must be users that rely heavily on Caps Lock. What about Sean Wrona!?

Yes, adapting to change is difficult. Yes, it's hard to throw long-held standards overboard. But instead of forcing an unused key on 99 % of all users, let's remap it to a key that 100 % of all users use and let the few hardboiled Caps Lock aficionados be the one to remap their keyboard.

For decades now, the standard QWERTY keyboard layout has been in place. For decades now, it has remained mostly unchanged. We have evolved beyond typewriters, let's start evolving beyond a keyboard layout that was intended to prevent the jamming of type hammers.

Evil Begone

While an increasing amount of people are turning towards alternative, more modern keyboard layouts such as Dvorak (don't), Colemak, or Workman, most people are so used to the classic QWERTY layout (or whatever regional variant you use^[5]) that this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Of course, there's the possibility to remap the Caps Lock key to any key you like (the favorites being Backspace and Control) — and there's nothing wrong with that — but if the only way to have a useful keyboard layout is to customize it, there's something inherently wrong with the standard we are using.

But instead of changing the standard keyboard layout in one fell swoop, let's go one key at a time. In 2010, Google replaced the Caps Lock key with a Search key on its Chromebooks while the popular Happy Hacking keyboard put the Control key in the same spot. There's hope.

Image Credits:

• Header Image Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
• 'Workflow' by Randall Munroe for XKCD
• 'Lock Key Layout' drawn by Mysid, modified by Mario Dederichs. [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons