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Below is a listing of our top 10 tips for keeping your e-mail inbox clean. Following these suggestions will help allow you to keep your inbox clean and your e-mail experience more enjoyable.

Setup rules, filters, or labels

All e-mail programs and online e-mail services today have rules, filter, or label system that enables you to automatically move and otherwise organize incoming e-mail. Using this effectively can help organize your e-mail and get to what's most important first. Below are some suggestions for rules we'd suggest setting up first.

Move important and unimportant e-mails to a folder of their own.

Highlight or set priority to certain addresses. For example, a rule could be created to highlight any user that's found in your address book.

Filter out common spam words that get into your inbox, e.g. Viagra.

In programs that support it setup a rule to mark messages that may not be important as read. This can help eliminate the stress you get when opening your e-mail and seeing hundreds of unread e-mails.

If you're getting a lot of spam filter your e-mail through Gmail. See Tip133 for additional information.

Don't be afraid to delete

After reading e-mail always take action on that e-mail. Don't save it for later or move it into a folder to be forgot about. If you're unable to take action on the e-mail, delegate it to someone else, or postpone it for later that day delete it. Every e-mail doesn't need a response and there is no reason to save an e-mail that's going to be deleted months later.

Automatic replies, FAQs, and canned responses

If you find yourself using the same reply over and over creating a list of your frequent replies or using a tool such as one of the ones listed below can help make replying to these e-mails even faster.

Customize your tiles

Windows 8 tilesMake the most of your Windows Start screen tiles by adjusting the sizes, where they are located, and what is listed.

Move any tile by clicking and dragging the tile. While moving a tile, if you need a larger view of the Start screen move the tile towards the top or bottom of the screen to zoom out.

Use your mouse wheel to scroll left-to-right through your tiles.

Any Desktop shortcut or program can be pinned to the Start screen by right-clicking the icon and choosing Pin to Start.

In the bottom right-hand corner of the start screen is a magnifying glass with tiles, click this icon to get a zoomed out view of your Start screen. In this view, if you right-click on a group of tiles you'll be given the option to name group, which can be useful if you have a group of related tiles (e.g. games). In this view, you can also click and drag a group to organize your tile groups.

Create a new speed bump between tile groups by moving a tile to a speed bump.

Resize any User tile or Live tile by right-clicking the tile and choosing resize.

If there is a tile you want on your Taskbar, right-click the tile and choose Pin to taskbar.

Show admin applications on the Start screen by clicking Settings in Charms, click Settings, and change the Show administrative tools from No to Yes.

In Internet Explorer 10, you can also pin any of your favorite web pages to your Start Screen.

Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts

Knowing at least some of the Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts will make your Windows 8 experience much more enjoyable. Try to memorize these top Windows 8 shortcut keys.

Press the Windows key to open the Start screen or switch to the Desktop (if open).

Press the Windows key + D will open the Windows Desktop.

Press the Windows key + . to pin and unpin Windows apps on the side of the screen.

Press the Windows key + X to open the power user menu, which gives you access to many of the features most power users would want (e.g. Device Manager and Command Prompt).

Press the Windows key + C to open the Charms.

Press the Windows key + I to open the Settings, which is the same Settings found in Charms.

Press and hold the Windows key + Tab to show open apps.

Press the Windows key + Print screen to create a screen shot, which is automatically saved into your My Pictures folder.

See our Windows shortcuts page for a full listing of all Windows shortcuts.

Below is a list of our top ten Google tricks many people who use Google don't know about.

Definitions

Pull up the definition of the word by typing define followed by the word you want the definition for. For example, typing: define bravura would display the definition of that word.

Local search

Visit Google Local enter the area you want to search and the keyword of the place you want to find. For example, typing: restaurant at the above link would display local restaurants.

Phone number lookup

Enter a full phone number with area code to display the name and address associated with that phone number.

Find weather and movies

Type "weather" or "movies" followed by a zip code or city and state to display current weather conditions or movie theaters in your area. For example, typing weather 84101 gives you the current weather conditions for Salt Lake City, UT and the next four days. Typing movies 84101 would give you a link for show times for movies in that area.

Track airline flight and packages

Enter the airline and flight number to display the status of an airline flight and it's arrival time. For example, type: delta 123 to display this flight information if available.

Google can also give a direct link to package tracking information if you enter a UPS, FedEx or USPS tracking number.

Translate

Translate text, a full web page, or search by using the Google Language Tools.

Pages linked to you

Mouse clickMost computer users don't take full advantage of the computer Mouse. Below are computer mouse tips and secrets that help you get the full potential of your computer mouse and increase your overall productivity while on the computer.

Shift key and mouse click

Many text editors and programs allow you to highlight all or portions of text using the Shift key and the mouse. For example, place the cursor at the beginning of a paragraph in a text editor, hold down the Shift key and click at the end of the paragraph to highlight the full paragraph.

Bonus tip: Holding down the Alt key while dragging and highlighting text in a text editor will allow you to selectively highlight text. This can be useful if your paragraph or other text is in a column.

Take full advantage of the scroll wheel

Today, everyone is familiar with a mouse wheels ability to scroll up and down on a page. However, this wheel can also do so much more, below are just a few examples.

Top 10 keyboard shortcutsUsing keyboard shortcuts can greatly increase your productivity, reduce repetitive strain, and help keep you focused. For example, highlighting text with the keyboard and pressing Ctrl + C is much faster than taking your hand from the keyboard, highlighting the text using the mouse, clicking copy from the file menu, and then putting your hand back in place on the keyboard. Below are our top 10 keyboard shortcuts we recommend everyone memorize and use.

Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Insert

Copy the highlighted text or selected item.

Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert

Paste the text or object that's in the clipboard.

Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y

Undo any change. For example, if you cut text, pressing this will undo it. This can also often be pressed multiple times to undo multiple changes. Pressing Ctrl + Y would redo the undo.