It is a little after 8:00 p.m. on a Sunday night and after an hour of working on one of my email inboxes I am at 200 emails. It feels wonderful. I have always intuitively known that clutter doesn’t just exist in your home, it can exist in your head, and in your computer.
In fact, it’s a bit alarming how quickly your inbox can fill up with the remnants of long ago conversations, receipts from past purchases, and the digital copies of important documentation. Sometimes it feels like everything in your email inbox is important-but i’s not. I have in fact been working very hard to eliminate clutter not only in my home, but in every part of my life. And thanks to Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, I have a name to call the process for what I want to have happen in my inbox.
Inbox Zero
Working towards a constant inbox zero is similar to working towards an electronic nirvana. A happy space that you can’t imagine exists. But, as I continue to work digitally, having a cluttered inbox is creating some problems. It’s hard to stay current on important correspondence, it’s easy to lose track of emailed receipts, confirmation of travel related documentation and a full inbox becomes very overwhelming.
Currently, I am working on a HUGE declutter project in my home. Now, you have to understand that i have spent the past year pairing things down. For some reason though, I felt that it was time to get rid of even more stuff. It is mildly addicting. The more unnecessary stuff I get rid of the lighter I feel. In fact, as I get rid of the unwanted remnants of past years I feel like I’m finally able to move forward in all aspects of my life. There is something to be said about making room for new things.
How To Make Inbox Zero Happen
- Have Coffee/Tea First-Don’t deal with emails first thing in the morning. When I worked my previous job I would respond to emails about an hour after arrival. I would create a list of very important tasks prior to looking at my emails. If there were emails that touched on those tasks then I would know what to prioritize. My rationale for waiting was that if there was a super important issue the person who sent the email would call. And, that always happened. Including my big boss who had a great level of respect for the work that I did. She never seemed pissed because I hadn’t emailed her right when I came in to the office. Once I responded to an email she knew that I would manage any issue that was brought up immediately from the point that I responded.
- Clarity-By waiting on responding to emails, I was able to prioritize which ones were most important and delete the ones that were just time wasters.
- Unsubscribe-We all accidentally get on emailing lists. Some on purpose, others that we are irritated to be on. I just made sure to unsubscribe from the lists as soon as I possible.
- File-File important emails in folders that you’ve created to maintain important correspondence.
- Short Bursts-Don’t spend more than an hour on the initial email clean up. As you continue to embrace this concept the clean up time should take no more than 15 minutes a day.
Minimalism has been one of the life practices that I feel will serve me well in the long run. As I’ve quite frankly lost my desire to bring in more items into my home embracing systems that keep things simple seems like a no brainer.
Now, I just have to get the other two inboxes cleaned up. Sigh.
Have You Considered Embracing Inbox Zero?
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My Inbox is a nightmare! I know that I need to get it under control, but I’ve never found a way to get to zero. Maybe I’ll try some of these ideas.
I can’t believe how many emails we get. A lot of the emails could be cut down by just placing a call and talking for a few minutes. My goal is to get all THREE of my inboxes down to zero by Friday.
I really need to do this. At my day job I always file everything and clear my inbox but my personal email has at least 50,000 + unread emails (it’s at least 4 years old and I’m considering getting rid of it) and I usually maintain about 100 emails for my blog/freelance business inbox. I think I can easily cut those 100 emails down to zero I just need to set the time aside to do it.
Chonce, I’m not going to lie-my mouth dropped open when my eyes hit the number 50,000 ACK! I actually went to past years and just filed business related emails and deleted the rest. It feels pretty good.
I agree that having a cluttered inbox can drive you crazy and make you feel icky just as much as a messy apartment would. I have had moments where I had a delete-fest and it did feel good. I wondered why I felt the need to keep so many. But as life gets busy, the inbox gets filled up again. I wonder if a weekly “cleanse” would keep things manageable? hmmm
I’m going to give it a try. I feel like I’m distracted by everything that comes in. So my goal is to manage emails ruthlessly. Will keep you posted!
I have the inbox zero dream, but its just a dream. I am a HR Manager in the military and my inbox never experiences inbox zero. From years of reading email after email, I have reached the point of giving up this dream…..Well until I retire and become a fab civilian.
I started laughing when I read this! Maybe you could archive emails so that they’re not in your active email area?
I have like more than 3,000 emails that I haven’t even seen or am aware of that it’s there. I just want to check it all and delete, but I am afraid I may miss an important email. Thanks for your tips Michelle. I have a lot of emails to deal with. LOL
If it was super important then they would have called you. Just get rid of those emails. Three thousand will go by quickly.
I actually do pretty good with my e-mails. I’ve unsubscribed from so much junk that I have days where I don’t even receive 30 messages in my main e-mail anymore. That is perfectly fine with me.
That.is.awesome! My social media is connected to my email so I get a ton of notifications. I just do a mass delete in the morning now.
I updated my notifications a long time ago with twitter and FB. I only get a few from FB. I hardly get anything from twitter these days.
The simple trick of unsubscribing from email lists (that I wasn’t reading anyway) helped me a lot!
I’m slowly but surely working through the unsubscribes now!