Your past Tips about managing email focus on controlling how much mail gets into your inbox by filtering, subscription control and filtering. Are there email management programs or add-ins programs that would also help?

There are a lot of data contained in your email beyond what is inside individual emails. Once you get control of the sheer volume of emails, to the point that you can be responsive to the content in each one, there is an opportunity to use the collective intelligence of your entire email traffic to improve the effectiveness of your communication. There are several free to low-priced applications to help you do this. Their purpose is to speed up your search for emails, show you who emails you the most, when most email traffic is sent to you, and

Xobni (inbox spelled backwards, get it?) is a clever third party application with both free and $30 versions. Xobni has really fast search, the ability to track message threads, find relationships between all the people who email you, pulls information from email signatures and content to enhance your contacts, and links your contacts to their Facebook, Twitter and other social media profiles. This kind of application creates information from your email, far more than just managing it. For example, Xobni can determine who among your email contacts responds fastest to your emails, or when they most often email you (so you know when they are most likely to respond).

Tip: There are other applications, such as NEO (Nelson Email Organizer) and you might consider collections of add-ins (e.g., Top 50 Most Popular Outlook Add-Ons). Each of these has merits that you will need to evaluate for your own needs. Remember, it often takes a combination of behavior and technology to effectively manage your email.

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