Coffee Talk #224: Spring Clean Your Inbox

It’s SPRING CLEANING time at FWA and I want to get into some of those hard-to-reach spaces. Especially since we’ve been glued to our computers and devices, I want to take some time to refresh these spaces.

This week’s topic: Clean your Inbox

Here’s what prompted this: over the past year, my inbox has been flooded, FLOODED, with email messages. I have companies and colleagues and acquaintances coming at me from all directions with daily (sometimes multiple times a day) messages. I had moments in late 2020 where I sat under a blanket and hit unsubscribe on just about everything.

It got to the point where email was KING again, at least in my industries, and I was ready for a change. I work for a nonprofit organization and we are all working remotely, even now. In my duties for this position, I also work with a school district, so that’s double the email messages. I’m glad for the communication (over-communicate vs. under-communicate in my book), but the number of messages I received overall was just overwhelming last year.

It got so bad that I even stopped sending my weekly fitness email, eliminating it to a monthly message. Then, I realized I have some clients who need the weekly email update as a reminder to register, since they don’t have social media where I post and update most things. So, I’ve made exceptions, but I definitely had a time where I was over email.

So let’s talk about email. And the inbox. And things like ‘inbox zero’ and ‘productivity.’

1. Be an investigator of your inbox. Who is the sender of most of your messages? Do you have 10 messages between someone looking for a meeting time? Do you get messages from companies and you’re no longer interested? Do you have messages from 2019 that are no longer relevant (yes)? Do you have more than 100 messages? Take note of what you have in your inbox!

2. Delete anything from 2019 or older. Trust me. Please do this. Things are different now, for better or worse, and clinging to pre-covid times isn’t helping your inbox. Check all and delete. If you haven’t responded to it yet, you’re not going to respond. If it’s related to a project idea, that ship has sailed. If it was important, you’d have moved it to a shared doc or a different place by now.

3. Create separate email addresses. Have an email address for each function of your life. This is a very easy way to achieve the ‘inbox zero’ idea. I have 7 email addresses – one for main work, one for school district, one for fitness clients, one for stores/companies and online orders, one for junk that I give out if random places ask for email, one for bills and finances, and one for travel. I separate email accounts by task/job which helps when I need to find something quickly.

4. Utilize a scheduling tool for meetings vs. email. This is a BIG one. If you find that you have 10 + messages between you and clients or colleagues trying to schedule meetings, it’s time to make use of a product like calendly. Stop using email to set-up meetings. It’s annoying to both parties and takes unnecessary time from your day. Pre-load a calendar with times you can meet and share that link with others. They get to choose the time that works best for them.

5. Can’t delete everything? Delete in batches. Search for a sender name and delete emails by type. This is a fun thing to do while in line at the grocery store or waiting to pick-up a kid from practice. In your ‘inbox’ folder, type the name of a sender (company, person) and select all messages from that sender and delete! Delight as your inbox number lowers with each delete button you press. While you’re at it, UNSUBSCRIBE from those messages. Take a moment and unsubscribe from everything that no longer serves you.

6. High-functioning BONUS tip: If you work in an industry that does not allow you to delete messages for documentation purposes (been there), here’s what I used to do: create folders. Batch things by topic so they are easier to find. I would batch by event or sometimes even by colleague. Even better – create filters so when you receive messages from certain senders or with certain topics, they go into a folder before your main inbox. You can then CHOOSE when to view those messages.

Don’t you feel lighter when your inbox is lighter? Fun fact: we check our email once every 6 minutes on average. That’s time away from tasks.

One thing I’ve started doing to allow for more focus and less email-checking – I set my intention each day to only check my email once an hour. If I can, I try to check once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

BIG tip related to this – if you have an urgent message for someone, email is not the best place to send/share it. I’m trying to utilize chat options over email for quick questions or updates.

Try any of these tips and start to feel the mental clutter dissipate!