A few weeks ago, I made a commitment to myself. I would not have more than a screen-full of emails in my inbox.
To be honest, I was pretty good at filing most emails by category if they were for future reference. But there were still some that I would open, look at, skim over and then not sure what to do with, I would mark them as unread and close them. And there they would sit in my inbox, in bold and taking up space. And then I would repeat the cycle.
If you receive 10, 20, 30+ emails a day and you don’t act on them when they arrive, it doesn’t take long and you’ve got more in your inbox than you can handle. I recently heard someone say that she had 10,000 emails – now that’s overwhelming!
So how do you take back control of your inbox?
If you have a lot of emails, you’re going to need to set aside a block of time where you can dedicate yourself to this task.This could take 10-15 minutes or an hour or more depending on how many emails you have. I like Friday afternoons. They’re great for wrapping up loose ends from the week and what a great way to tidy up and clear a lot of clutter for the weekend.
Here’s what you can do to take back control:
Sort by sender.
Look for emails that are subscriptions that you might not be reading. If you’re not reading them, consider cancelling your subscription. I realize suggesting this, you may decide to cancel your subscription to this newsletter, and that’s ok if you’re finding that what I have to offer you isn’t helping you. I understand.
Delete them.Even if you decide not to cancel your subscription, you may want to just delete them and start fresh.
Sort by received date.
Find the oldest emails. Did you open the email and read it, and then just forget to delete it once it’s been handled? Delete it. I used to be scared that I would delete something that was important, but then I thought about this –if the person who had sent me the email had called me instead, I wouldn’t have a record of our conversation. So why did I think that I needed to keep a record of it by email? I didn’t.
Unopened emails – or the ones that are marked as unread – need to have a decision made about what is next.
Can you complete the next action step in less than 2-minutes? If you answered yes, then go ahead and complete the next step. If you can’t, what’s the next step? Does it need to be followed up later? Does it need to be deferred to someone else? What’s the next step?
Now that you know what it is, you may want to use your email program to help you track that next action. If you are using Microsoft Outlook, there are some easy features built in to help you with this. (**Note: If you prefer to use low-end technology – like a calendar to keep track – that’s fine too. Systems are not about using technology, but instead establishing habits and routine.)
Follow-up as a Task.You can click and drag the email to the Task icon in Microsoft Outlook. This will copy the email in its entirety into a Task. You can then set the due date and even assign it to someone else if the next step is to delegate it. Once set up as a Task, delete it from the inbox.
Follow-up and book time in Calendar.You can click and drag the email to the Calendar icon in Microsoft Outlook. Enter the appointment information and now it’s scheduled in your calendar. Once in your Calendar, delete it from the inbox.
There are going to be some emails that you will want to keep as reference material. You can create folders for them by category and file the emails there. Other alternatives include filing them electronically on your computer, using a SharePoint site or if you are using Microsoft Office you can use OneNote.
You can send an email to OneNote by clicking the Send to OneNote button. Once you’ve filed the email electronically – or if you’ve chosen to print it for a hard copy reference – delete it from the inbox.
Are you beginning to see a pattern here? Simple and focus.
To help keep you from going back into email overwhelm you may want to implement the following strategy:
- Schedule time to open emails
- Decide what the next action is
- Do it
- Delete it
As you can see, what I did was make a decision about what the next action step was for the email. I still have, for most cases, a form of the email in my email program, however they are now organized with follow-up dates or filed for reference material only.
Now when I look at my inbox there is less than a screen-full of emails.