I dread my Inbox every single day. While I love my work, I’d be a liar if I said my Inbox is something I look forward to looking at. I love the ease of email, but those messages can pile up quickly, adding significant stress to my day. A few months ago I realized I desperately needed to get my Inbox under control - serious control. I’ve read all kinds of tips and suggestions, but here are some actionable methods that will significantly help with the overwhelming task of email response.
Start Clean - Spend a day or weekend doing a deep cleaning of your Inbox. Take some time and start from scratch before you do anything else. Trust me, you’ll mentally thank me for this later.
Optimize Your Inbox - Every email service provider has a set of tips, tricks, and add-ons to help organize your Inbox. From creating filters to establishing tabs or even prioritizing messages and using keyboard shortcuts, your provider can be very powerful. Most people don’t use these options at all (or very rarely). Get in-tune with your email service and see what organizational tools are available to you and start using them.
Use a Text or Chat Service for Internal Communication - Is email really the best way to communicate? Really think about this. If you need a quick response and don’t have time for a call, maybe you need to move the conversation to a different medium. There are numerous text or chat services available (free or low cost) where you can communicate with your team quickly without the use of an email message.
Turn off notifications - I no longer have email notifications pop up on my phone. And guess what, the world still keeps going and doesn’t end and I'm not constantly stressed when I hear a ding. When I am on mobile only, I know I can’t be fully engaged with my Inbox so I take the stress of a notification away so I won’t be tempted.
Be Action Oriented - When you are in your Inbox, take a very specific action on every single email. Don’t push it aside in the hopes you will return. If it needs a response, do it. If it needs to just be deleted, do it. If it needs to be forwarded to the appropriate person, do it.
Become Better and Shorter - In my opinion, every email should be 7 sentences or shorter. Period. If I have something that requires more than 7 sentences, I go another route to get it out. Seven or less. That’s my email motto.
Unsubscribe - Don’t be an email hoarder. If you subscribe to a newsletter and haven’t looked at it (or any of its messages) in a month, unsub now. Get into this practice and be very picky about what you do subscribe to. Many services now offer text options, which I find to be a better alternative than clogging up my Inbox.
