Free your inbox from all the clutter
Inbox Zero has been put forward as the solution to all your inbox management problems but keeping an inbox empty does not necessarily mean it is organised.
The obsession which leads you to seek an empty inbox, with a clear “zero message” sign on top of it can be just as time-consuming as managing a regular inbox. According to inbox management expert Jocelyn K. Glei by doing so “you are chasing a moving target,[as] email is never complete.”
What is really important is that you don’t succumb to an inbox filled with hundreds of opened and unopened emails, laying there in no particular order as reminders, notes or just messages you thought you’d get to.
And if you are in this situation — not all hope is lost — what is really important is that you get your inbox back on track. Without thriving to change all your email habits, let’s try and get your email management sorted by using easy tips and tricks to clear out your inbox.
Outgoing emails
It may seem strange to start by the other side of the inbox and not the receiving end, but in reality, most of what comes into your inbox is triggered by what comes out of it.
The overflowing inbox we mentioned earlier often goes hand in hand with a draft folder filled with 50+ messages started but never sent and a mess of a Sent folder.
Most of the issues you face with your messy inbox come from wanting to remember too much stuff thanks to a draft or unopened emails.
Want to remember to send this email to your cousin but don’t want to wake him as it’s 2 AM, write it and schedule it for the morning.
Need to remind all your team of the upcoming deadline but don’t want to send the message 2 weeks beforehand, write it and schedule it to 7 days before the deadline.
The easier to free your mind and actually remember to send it, is to actually type everything you have to say when you think about it and press led the Send Later. Your emails will then automatically move out of your draft folder and be sent at the time of your choosing. It’s fine to have many drafts especially as those will actually get sent out, without you needing to remember anything.
How about when that message or any other is sent? How do you manage to check back on it if no one answered it? That budget approval your manager seems to always forget, or the booking confirmation from a supplier, how do you keep track of all of it? Flag it up, send yourself a Bcc that you will keep unopened to notice it, add a post-it to your monitor?
You could, but it wouldn’t help with the clutter, both virtual and real.
What you could do though is set up a follow up reminder. If 3,7 or 16 days after you sent your email you still haven’t received an answer the email will pop back in your inbox reminding you to check on what is going on.
You don’t need to let it pollute your inbox in the meantime.
As for when you think about an email to send but don’t have time to write it, don’t create a draft with just a subject line. Create a task card, right inside your inbox with this integrated to-do list management board.
It won’t crowd your inbox, and you’ll get reminders for it when the due date for the action is coming up.
Need to send an email to your accountant, create a task card, and you’ll be reminded.
Wanna pick up milk on the way home? It works for that too.
The good thing with an integrated to-do list is also that incoming emails can be turned into tasks too. You have to remember to send out all the project feedback to your boss once you finished your report as requested per his email? Turn that very email into a task card, set a due date and a high priority. Once you do, the email moves out of your inbox but you will get reminders for it as it is on your to-do list so you don’t risk to forget answering it.
Incoming emails
Now that you are on top of your emailing game, getting all the messages you send sorted and with a way to remember emails to answer without leaving them unopened inside your inbox forever, what else could you need?
Well, turning an email into a to-do is great for an email that can maybe wait a little or for which you need to collect info or finish a report to send as an attachment. But for all the emails that are important but don’t really require to be inputted into your to-do list, how can you make sure to get back to them without cluttering your inbox?
That’s when the snooze option comes in. When I go through emails in the morning, I first quickly look through what I received, just judging from the sender and subject line. Anything urgent or unknown remains into my inbox, anything I want to get done later today or tomorrow when I have a chance gets snoozed.
A client’s request for an update which I will have after my afternoon team meeting can come back to my inbox then.
Feedback on our last video script from one of my colleagues can wait until tomorrow when I’ll have received everyone’s feedback etc.
No emails are left forgotten, they just don’t need to stay in my inbox in the meantime, and I can easily go through the most important and urgent emails of the morning.
Another useful trick may sound obvious, but for some reason we all tend to be lazy and never use it.
The unsubscribe option
How many mail lists are you still part of that you automatically disregard or delete as soon as you receive them? Why spend time on these?
To be fair the unsubscribe process can sometimes be time-consuming, but it is always less than spending a minute a day getting irritated by these emails. Also you can add an unsubscribe button to your Gmail inbox to save time unsubscribing.
One last pro tip when using Gmail is to make the most of Labels; they can be used to order your inbox just as you would use folders with other email providers. Once the labels are created, they are located on the left side menu and you can drag and drop selected emails from your inbox to the label. You can even use labels on emails you send out to keep track of every message on a topic.
Some good habits and the right tools will get your inbox in order in no time.
