10 Ways To Get Your Email Under Control

Welcome to the Healing the Hoarder in Me Series. Today we’re talking all about the ever-overwhelming inbox. The digital ball and chain….e-mail.

E-mail can give us amazing notes of encouragement, great news and business opportunities. At the same time this digital hole can bring junk, temptation and the feeling that we’re trapped in a box with a to-do list that doesn’t end.

I “archive” too many emails. I “star” things I want to go back to and I keep deleting the same daily newsletters. What a waste of time.

Let’s stop that now. Together.

See, this is what I’ve started with….

And here are 10 things I’ve learned along the way….

Unsubscribe
If you haven’t opened the last 2 newsletters from a certain company, just decide they’re gone. Instead of hitting delete for the 20th time, click a few more times and unsubscribe. You won’t have to deal with it anymore.

A note on “spam” - did you know that if you hit the “spam” button to get rid of things it actually reports the sender as “spam” even if you signed up for it. It can negatively affect ratings. To be kind to businesses either don’t sign up in the first place or “unsubscribe” as soon as your interests have changed.

In-Box

Delete unnecessary e-mails Right Away As simple as this sounds how many people actually do this. We open our account, search for personal emails, comments or fun information and scroll past the rest. Then to “clean things up” we click a bunch of boxes and hit archive/delete whatever button is the closest to our finger.

Label/File the emails you want to keep. Do not limit the amount of file folders. Be as specific as possible. You can always go back and delete the entire folder if you find you’re not using it. I have “photos,” “blog contacts,” and “receipts” to name just a few.

Star/Highlight - use this feature lightly. Don’t star a million items, mark them unread to not return for days. This is how emails get lost. If you star or highlight 50 items it loses it’s ability to grab your attention and remind you of the things that really matter.

Respond Right Away - get it out of your inbox and be done with it. Make sure your email answers all questions in a clear and concise manner. You don’t want to be emailing back and forth wasting time. This is one reason to respond to people on your computer rather than your phone. Less distractions and much faster.

Archive only what’s needed. If you can’t label it into one of your “files” then it goes to the trash.

Drafts - if it’s more than 2 weeks old, it’s gone. If not, finish the email and be done with it.

Make a Date - Stop Refreshing!
What if the Postal Service delivered at random times throughout the day. Would you walk out to your mailbox 50 times to see if anything was delivered? How efficient would you be during the day? Well, the same thing goes for your email. Stop “refreshing” to see if you have mail. Make a date or two throughout the day to check your email. Go through the list above by responding right away, filing and then deleting or archiving.
If you have a difficult time stopping yourself from clicking over, then close out the tab in your browser or take it one step further and sign out. It will be a pain to sign in every time and limit you from checking so much.

Phone Settings

If you have email on your phone double check your settings. You may be “archiving” instead of “deleting” your emails. Make sure the settings are set as you’d like. If you’re out and about you probably don’t have the time to file and respond as you should. Respond only to what you need to and use this time to delete the ones you don’t need and leave the rest to email and file away when you’re on your computer.

Getting Started

Set aside some time every day for the next week to delete and organize. You can “select all” and then look through all of them. Un-marking the emails you’d like to keep and deleting the rest. That will save your fingers and sanity a bit. Take it in small chunks and get going! Delete first and then go back and organize into files.

Do you have a hard time keeping your e-mail under control?

Comments

Marilyn (Pulp Sushi) says:

April 5, 2012 at 2:57 pm

I have a super Type A personality so my inbox is constantly at (0) because I forever move things around. I have about a billion folders and tags in my Gmail. One day my boyfriend happened to look over my shoulder while on the computer and says “What’s with all those crazy colors in your inbox??” lol!

mari says:

April 15, 2012 at 1:24 am

I have 2115 emails in my inbox. Yeah, crazy.
some though i kept on purpose like the ones Ben would send me when we were dating!