Feeling lost on a planet full of tasks, demands, requirements or anything like that some days? No worries. Here are some basic tips to keep your day structured and clear.

E-mail inboxes
Some jobs require a lot of correspondence by e-mail. When you feel your inbox is bulging and taking over control of your schedule, try to adapt your workflow and let technology help you out.

• Use smart mailboxes. Some of your messages are not that important. Make a smart mailbox for newsletters, for family and friends correspondence, private e-mails and of course business related e-mails.

• Try to use flags. Modern mail applications let you mark e-mails flagged in different colors, take advantage of that. The color of the flag could tell you the importance and priority of the message. Red is urgent and important, yellow could be less demanding at that point. Solve and answer red marked e-mails first and work down the ladder past the other grades of priorities.

• When you really are in a lack of time, answer an e-mail with a short sentence. "Dear John, I just received your e-mail. Today I'm out of the office, but I'll make sure I get back to you tomorrow." It will give you some time to breath and the sender knows you are aware of the message, so he normally would not have to chase you. Should follow this rule myself more often too :).

To-do apps and tools
Working in a project driven company? Make sure you invest in some good tools to manage your processes with.

• Use a collaboration tool such as Basecamp or Wunderkit to keep the information in a central place within the project. Structurally write down decisions, responsibilities, deadlines, to-do's. Best results are achieved when everyone's workflow is based on this tool, so everyone knows which rules to follow and where to find relevant information. It would be perfect if you can track the time you work on projects too, it gives great insights in which time actually is spent and budgeted.

• For personal to-do's you should use an app to prioritize your tasks. There are many wonderful apps available for desktops, tablets and other mobile devices. When you use more than one device, I suggest you choose one that syncs your data. That will help keeping things up to date. Wunderlist is my favorite, but Things (beta) is a worthy but more pricy alternative. Also, my experiences with these apps learned that I don't want to see all to-do's at once. It could make you uncomfortable, because there is always more than you can solve at that moment. Due dates are indispensable. The tasks which are important at that time will appear in your overview, so you can work focussed and comfortable at the right thing at the time.

These are just some basics we have learned and experienced ourselves here at Supersteil. There is really not one particularly right way to optimize your workflow, it also depends on your type of work, your tools and your personality. But hopefully we gave you some insights that will optimize yours.