How I Cleared My Inbox From 12,000 to 0–My Simple Email Management Guide
I had 12,000 emails and more than 50 email marketing subscriptions. I’m sure there is some software that could have automated the process for me, but I spent an hour (really, only an hour) filtering through my inbox archiving, deleting, and unsubscribing from the mailing mountain I allowed to fester on my computer. In the process, I have learned a lot about the features that can optimise the way we manage our mail. The fact is no one teaches you ‘how to email’ at school or at university, most people learn by trial and error or look up a tutorial online.
Here’s everything I have learned:
How Did My Inbox Get That Bad and Why I Needed To Change?
I can’t carry on without explaining that number. Twelve thousand emails. The truth is I didn’t manage my emails. I wouldn’t delete, I wouldn’t archive and I didn’t use folders. I would read and reply. While this served me well until this point in my life; my personal, work and hobby-related responsibilities have skyrocketed in the past year. Naturally, as you gain responsibility there are more things asking for your time and attention — the most boring of which are emails. I long for the days at school where the only use for my email was to log on to my Playstation account and play video games into the night. Good times.
Everyone has to ‘do email’. That’s the modern world. Naturally, some will have more emails to deal with than others, but everyone would like to minimise the time they spend staring at their Outlook and Gmail accounts. Everyone does email, but not everyone does it well.
Categorise your inbox. Create folders. Automate where you can, and clear your mail once a day. If you do this successfully you will reach ‘Inbox Zero’. Inbox Zero (an inbox with no emails) keeps things clutter-free and allows you to prioritise high-value tasks and make the most of your time.
10 Simple Tips To Effectively Manage Your Emails
1. Clear Your Inbox Once a Day…Please.
There is a difference between clear and delete. You should keep your inbox clear. This means you archive or delete messages after handling them (I tell you how to handle emails later — in tip 4). The benefit of doing this is that you save time not having to scroll through dozens of messages, and can easily deal with new emails as they arrive throughout the day.
Look at the image below, my inbox has 4 emails that I have received today. So, I have gone from 0 to 4. This is significantly easier to deal with than if there were 4 emails added to 100+ already in my inbox. I don’t have to scroll around, filter or do much thinking; I handle my emails and I go back to inbox zero. Minimise your decision fatigue.
So we have established what it means to clear your inbox. I would recommend doing this once per day. However, attending to emails throughout the day is a professional expectation for many. So, I’m not saying you should ignore your emails, just keep your inbox clean.
I like the idea of keeping a zero inbox, but I’m not religious about it. There are times when it’s practical to leave emails. Just be careful not to allow the mail to pile up.
2. Folders. Folders. Folders.
I am an organisation freak when it comes to folders and sub-folders on my computer, so it’s about time that this translated to my email. Folders allow you to categorise the emails you receive, so that you can easily refer to them at a later date or attend to a task that you need to complete.
Keep your folders structured, and based upon importance. For example, if you have two folders called “bills” and “taxes”, it makes more sense for these to be two subfolders within a “finances” folder. I wouldn’t go crazy creating subfolders for subfolders, but it is an insanely powerful tool especially when combined with automatic filtering.
3. Automate With Filters.
Automation is supposed to make our lives easier right? You can automatically archive emails, delete them and move them into specific folders by creating filters.
In the image below, I use the example of a water company that probably sends its customers the same email on a regular basis. Do we really have to manually sort the same email every month? If a computer can do something for you, let it. You simply enter the senders' address and those messages will be directed straight to a folder e.g. water bill.
Automating boring administrative tasks minimises the time you spend taking care of them, allowing you to be more productive with your time.
4. The 2 Minute Reply Rule.
If you have received a long email that requires extra thought and effort, it makes sense to come back to it later. But, if you have emails that you can whack out a response to in a couple of minutes then it makes sense to reply immediately. Letting emails collect in your inbox creates more work for you. Clean up as you go along.
If something DOES NOT require your input, delete it if you have no use for it, and archive it if it may come in handy in the future. The only caveat I would add is that some things may need to be delegated to others, this is when you would forward an email to someone else.
On the other hand, if something DOES require your input you need to ask yourself “how long will it take to respond to this?”.
- If it takes < 2 minutes → Reply immediately
- If it takes >2 minutes → Come back later (Flag)
Triaging your emails like this allows you to clear batches of emails relatively quickly, reduces the likelihood of emails piling up.
The diagram below summarises how to implement the 2-minute reply rule. It has been adapted from asianefficiency.com, I’d recommend reading their article on email management here.
5. Time Batching Works. Allocate Time For Your Emails.
Time batching is when you group similar or repetitive tasks together, to minimise distractions and be more efficient. Setting aside time to specifically manage your emails will make you more effective and save you time.
I find it best to sort my emails first thing in the morning or in the evening. I keep myself accountable by only allowing myself to spend 15 minutes doing this. For you it may be 30 minutes, or even an hour. The benefit of doing this is that if you spend too long looking at your inbox on a given day, you can stop and leave it for the next day. This has two benefits, it ensures that you don’t waste time reading emails and it forces you to prioritise important tasks from less important ones.
6. Prioritise Your Mail
Being able to prioritise is an important life skill. If you are holding a baby and you drop your phone, I would hope that you forget about the phone and keep the baby firmly in your grip… Being able to prioritise important emails from unimportant ones is something we can all get better at.
Celestine Chua has a blog called Personal Excellence, if you want to learn more about how to prioritise emails, I highly recommend her article here.
She breaks down emails into 3 simple categories:
A. Important emails (10–20% of inbox)→ Attend to ASAP.
B. Emails not as important as A (40–60% of inbox)→ Handle these as usual.
C. Unimportant emails (20–30% of inbox)→ Ignore. Delete.
For me emails related to my degree, future career and those from colleagues take precedence over others. Create a hierarchy, and prioritise.
7. Unsubscribe From Newsletters That Clutter Your Inbox.
This one is self explanatory. If there’s newsletters that you don’t read, companies will happily send you emails for the rest of your life. If you don’t like it, unsubscribe.
I had around 50 email newsletter subscriptions from brands like the North Face to MisterSpex a German glasses retailer. While I might have enjoyed their products, I did not like being bombarded with email marketing. I’ve gotten rid of all of them. All that’s left are my subscriptions to the newsletters of bloggers and a few academic journals I find interesting.
PSA: every email marketing ad you receive contains an “unsubscribe” button at the bottom. Use it.
8. Flag Emails That You Need To Come Back To.
I love the flag button! It’s perfect for emails that you cannot attend to immediately, or for tasks that you can come back to at a later date. You can also select these emails to become ‘tasks’ and receive reminders to complete them after a certain time period.
Some emails are more time intensive than others, so its good to flag these and come back to them when you have more time. In my experience I frequently flag emails for job applications, and whenever I need to scan documents, as these take up more time.
Experiment! See what works for you.
9. For The Love of God Turn Off Social Media Email Notifications.
I’ll keep this brief. There’s no reason you should be receiving email notifications when you get a match on Hinge, or when someone connects with you on LinkedIn. You can get these notifications on your phone, and on the respective web apps. Keep things simple. Declutter your inbox.
10. It’s Okay If You Don’t Reply.
This is something I struggle with, because it is profoundly unnatural. If someone speaks to you, you want to reply. But you have to weigh up whether you should reply to something. If someone has kindly emailed you and asked a question, do them the courtesy of replying and fulfilling their request. But, if you are sent random mail with no context or future use it’s fine not to reply.
One of the things I like about email is that I am understanding if I don’t get a response from someone. If it is really important to me I will always follow up. This goes both ways. Generally, emailers will be understanding if people do not reply. The same can’t be said when texting your significant other…
That was my guide on how to manage your emails effectively. I hope its provided you with some value and a systematic approach to something we take for granted. If you have other email tips let me know!
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