Day 20 - E-mail

There is no reason to have a ridiculous amount of unread e-mails in your inbox.

You can gain control of the space in your inbox just like you can gain control of the space in your pantry. Get rid of the clutter. Even at my busiest of seasons I try to maintain control of my inbox. It helps me keep up with important information and reply in a professional & timely manner.

If you’ve got a lot of work to do in this area, don’t be overwhelmed! Just spread the task out over a few days!

This task may require a lot of work on the front end but if you set up a good system and stick to it you really won’t have to do much to maintain it. I guess that applies to every space we are decluttering & organizing this month!

There are a ton of apps you can download to help you manage e-mail clutter but the following steps will guide you to declutter manually.

If you have a ridiculous amount of e-mails in your inbox…first, take a picture and leave it in the comments on Facebook & Instagram. I’m curious who has the most. Cover up any personal information.

1. UNSUBSCRIBE

   • We all have the annoying e-mails that come in our inbox every day or week that we either ignore or just immediately delete. If you are always deleting e-mails or never even opening them from a specific sender JUST UNSUBSCRIBE from their mailing list. This junk mail makes it hard for you to see what you really need in your inbox. 

   • If you really want to practice some self-control unsubscribe from the e-mails from stores that you spend too much money at online! That would make a difference in more than just your inbox. 

   • Unsubscribe from newsletters you are no longer interested in too. 

   • You can do this all at once (if you haven’t been deleting the spam e-mails as they come in) or what I recommend is for the remainder of this month every time you get an e-mail that you do not want to receive anymore take the time to open it and click unsubscribe. It takes a little bit of time on the front end but it WILL save you time in the long run.

   • STOP signing up for e-mails you know you don’t want. When a clerk at a store asks for your e-mail address you can say, “No thanks.” I do it all the time.  

   • Turn off e-mail notifications from apps. A lot of times you’re getting noficiations from the same app in multiple places. Get it out of your inbox.

2. Delete

   • Set aside some time for this & delete the old or unnecessary e-mails. 

   • You can search key words, senders, subject lines, etc. and delete (or save) e-mails in mass.

   • Be brutal on this one. Don’t keep e-mails you do not need.

3. Create Filters

   • This one is optional. If you know you’ll stay on top of unsubscribing, deleting, and managing your e-mail folders you may not have to do this. But if you want a little extra help in maintaining a clean inbox you should do it!

   • Create filters to keep things out of your inbox that are not pressing.

   • Filters allow you to create labels/categories to automatically filter certain e-mails into. 

   • You can set up specific filters for e-mails you want to automatically skip your inbox. 

   • You can choose for certain e-mails to go straight into a folder, be deleted, left unread, and a lot of other options. 

   • THIS REALLY ONLY WORKS if you periodically (most likely daily, depending on the nature of your inbox) go into the filtered folders and see what needs to be taken care of or deleted. 

4. Create Folders

   • Set up folders ONLY for e-mails you know you need access to in the future.

   • Be specific in your naming your folders. Think of it as an electronic file cabinet. The purpose of the folders is to store/save similar e-mails together.

   • Take some time right now to sort e-mails into the folders you have created.

I keep my e-mail inboxes clean because I often use them as an extension of my to-do list.

Here are a few other tips that may help you!

1. If there are e-mails that require some sort of action from me I leave them in my inbox until I’m done with whatever I need to do. If I need to save it for future reference I’ll drag it to a folder or if I’m done with it completely I delete it.

2. I also occasionally delete my deleted e-mails folder. 

3. I use my calendar to set reminders to deal with things from my e-mail inbox or other to-do list. 

How to maintain a clutter free inbox:

• Do all of the steps above on a regular basis.

  • Unsubscribe regularly.

  • Delete regularly.

  • Check the filtered e-mails regularly

  • Sort e-mails you need to save into your folders regularly.

When you finish take an after picture of your empty (or at least reduced) inbox! Cover up any personal information. Hold on to the before and afters for the giveaway at the end of the 31 days!