Everyone needs a vacation. But coming back isn’t always fun, especially not when you’re greeted by an e-mail inbox that is so stuffed it will take days to go through it. Happily, you are able to take steps to make sure that your e-mail inbox is clean and orderly when you get back. You’ll just need a really good friend in the office.

 

Help from your friends

Jonathan Feldman, a contributing editor at InformationWeek, recommends that before you take your trip, you create a partnership with a co-worker. While you’re gone, this worker will handle your e-mail messages, reading them, sorting them and placing them in specially labeled folders. When this co-worker has vacation, you’ll handle that person’s e-mail.

 

Before your trip

Before you depart for vacation, call your colleagues and explain that somebody else in your office is going to be reading all your e-mails while you’re gone. Set up your e-mail so that it forwards incoming messages to your associate.

 

The rules

When you come back, your helper should leave you with an organized set of e-mail folders, folders containing urgent messages and others containing purely informational ones. Using this method, you won’t have to spend an entire workday slogging through a packed e-mail inbox.