How I Return From A Month-Long Vacation to Inbox Zero

First, I create a folder - or in Gmail terms, a new label.

I typically name it something that reflects the vacation - in this instance, I'm prepping for a month-away in Spain, so I'll call my label "Spain Sabbatical 2015." 

Second, I set up a filter that recognizes any emails being sent to *@company.com.

For me that's *@hubspot.com. By using the asterisk (*) instead of my actual email, I ensure that all email aliases that I'm on are also included, for example:

• name@company.com
• team@company.com
• department@company.com

This captures all emails I could possibly receive to my inbox. Then I apply two simple rules: have these emails skip my inbox and place them in my created folder. 

I've now effectively ensured that when I return from my vacation, my immediate inbox will be at zero. 

Having my emails skip my inbox allows me to:

1. Return from vacation with email anxiety nice and low.
2. Prevent myself from neurotically checking my email when I should be relaxing.
3. Immediately start responding to new emails, getting right back into the game.

But I also want to manage my unread emails efficiently upon return. So ... 

Third, I add a second filter that deletes irrelevant emails. 

We're all on various internal email distribution lists. For me, many of them are time-based and therefore irrelevant / out-of-date by the time I'm back from my trip.

For example, I usually receive a series of daily or weekly metric updates. As long as I can see the most recent metric email showing me overall progress, there's no need for my vacation folder to have 40 repeat daily digests. 

So I create another filter, this time calling out specific words that appear in the emails that will be out-of-date by the time I return. For these emails, I apply a rule to have them deleted automatically versus going into my vacations folder.

Now when I return from vacation, not only is my inbox at 0, but my vacations folder is free of any expired emails. 

Finally, when I return from vacation, I strategically handle unread emails.

After enjoying the screen that says I have no new email for a moment, I then turn off all my filters so that my inbox will begin reflecting new, incoming emails as usual.

As that happens, I hop into my vacations folder and start scanning for any emails that may have "important" in the subject line. I'll also conduct a couple key searches for my manger or key team stakeholder's to look for any notes I should respond to first. 

Once these more time-sensitive messages are addressed, I'll simply allocate a couple hours a day to respond to the remaining emails in this vacations folder. That way, I'm not only back-on-track quickly, but am able to immediately start helping my team without all "email catch up" time getting in the way. No email overload to overwhelm me.