If you’re anything like me, this is a long overdue task. My email inbox(es) has gotten totally out of control. With these recent weeks of so many emails – I have received at least one email on Covid-10 from every company I have ever done business with – and it’s been hard to keep up.
For me, the more cluttered my inbox gets, the less I want to look at it, and the less likely I am to look at the emails that actually need my attention. It’s a vicious cycle that can be halted by less than an hour’s worth of culling, filing, and deleting.
Everyone uses different email platforms with different capabilities, so this guide is fairly high level. You can figure out what works best for your inbox, but here are the steps that I take. I adapted this explanation from this awesome guide from Fast Company to clean up your inbox in one hour or less:
Step 1: Clear Out the Junk
Set a timer for 10 minutes and just start mass deleting messages you know are junk, like messages from social media accounts, delivery confirmations, and anything that is no longer relevant.
In gmail, you can search your inbox for common senders or subject lines (for example: Amazon delivery) and deleting those messages in batches.
Step 2: Create Folders and Labels
Set your timer for 20 minutes and organize the messages left that don’t need action, but that you need or want to keep.
Start creating folders by topic or type of email that have several messages that relate to it. So, that could mean folders like: Receipts, Projects, Travel, etc. You can always add and adapt folders as you go and figure out what works best for you.
Use this 20 minutes to make the quick, easy decisions. Don’t spend a lot of time on any one message. If you’re unsure about an email, create a folder called “Misc” or “To File” and put it in there. Some time in the future when you have a few minutes, you can look at that folder again and think about where to file those messages.
I err on the side of keeping when it comes to client emails (i have an email folder for each client) and just park much of the correspondence in there. It’s probably not necessary, but it helps me sleep at night knowing that I haven’t deleted a possibly important email. I use gmail so I have basically unlimited storage for messages.
Step 3: Make a To-Do List for Emails That Need Action
Set a timer for 30 minutes. After steps one and two, the emails you’re left with now should only be ones that need action. If the action can be completed in less than two minutes, do it now. If you need more time to take care of the message, add it to your to-do list with a notification to remind you to actually do it. Then, file the email to keep your inbox clear (you’ll still be able to search for it later).
If you’re just not a list maker, you can instead use Gmail’s snooze feature to have the email show up in your inbox when you’re ready to handle it. Or, if you’re an Outlook user, the follow-up feature lets you do the same.
And that’s it! You’ve got an organized inbox and you’re ready to take on the rest of your lockdown/quarantine/social distancing time in a state of digital order. Keep it up – take a little time each day to file and delete so that you don’t end up here again.