Conquering Email Clutter
How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? Did I just send a shiver down your spine?
Email clutter is something I am asked about consistently when working with a client on time management. How the heck do we deal with these constant emails flying in?
Fear not dear friend, here are six tips that allow me to reach the coveted INBOX ZERO every single day!
Make liberal use of the unsubscribe button - be cutthroat! If you find that you keep getting emails from the same company or person despite unsubscribing a few times, mark that sh*t as spam!
Delete/archive as much as you can. You can dedicate some time going through previous pages of emails to see if there is anything you need to respond to - but anything more than 100 emails back is basically already lost (in my opinion). Feel free to just archive it. You can always search for an email later if you need to.
Don't let your inbox become your "to do" list - it gets too confusing. If an email takes less than two minutes to respond to, take care of it. If its something you don't need - delete or archive it. If the email is a task - write that task down on your to-do list and...
Create a "Reference" folder. All emails that have some sort of task attached to go here. If the task is recorded on your to-do list, it doesn't need to be cluttering up your inbox.
Create boundaries around the time you spend checking and responding to your emails. Maybe you only check them for 30 minutes in the morning. Otherwise, you are unavailable.
Set up a weekly review. I recommend doing this with your calendar and to-do list - its also a great time to clear out your inbox and start fresh.
And don't forget - Constant vigilance, Harry!
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