Drowning in emails? Help yourself with these simple steps.
Yes, we (insert social media related profession here) all have several inboxes to manage. Yes, we receive hundred of subscriptions, Facebook updates, direct messages from Twitter, invitations from your networks, offers and deals into our inbox – this isn’t actually spam. But we hate it! (Well, if you don’t, I envy you).
Inbox 0 is bliss, those who can achieve the Zen of email management know how fresh and calming a clean inbox feels. On the other hand, those who have 1736+ unread email just don’t want to open it anymore. Here is a quick set of actions that will help you to get to Inbox 0 and keep the noise volume as low as you can.
1. Initial cleaning up
Make a cup of coffee or tea, plan 10 minutes to 1 hour for the initial cleaning. Be ruthless and merciful with the subscriptions, offers, social networks emails, etc: Select All –> Delete should be your current mantra. When you see a valuable message, star it and achieve, so it won’t stand in the way of our ultimate path to a clean inbox. If you feel tired, slap yourself several times and get back to work until you see real Inbox 0 and can’t believe your eyes.
2. Monitor and unsubscribe
For the next several weeks you have to be a careful observer and open every email you get. The course of actions is simple:
- Unsubscribe from a subscription or a newsletter if not longer interested;
- Tune the settings on social networks, trying to keep email notifications at minimum;
- Star important conversations and archive it or place to an action folder to keep inbox clean;
- Do yourself a favor, do not subscribe to all the services there are on the internet – you are not reading it anyways.
In 2-4 weeks, you should unsubscribe from anything that bothered you and get only high-priority social networks notifications. Sounds easy but go give it a try, and then tell me how hard it is to keep up.
3. Repeat steps 1-2 if you have been slacking off
You can reward yourself with a new shiny gadget, or a piece of jewelry, or whatever you fancy if you get to the end. I swear your productivity will rise, you will love your email inbox again, and you will answer in time to all those important emails.
Try it now (for your own good) and share your experience and other tips in comments!