Some say empty your inbox every day, some say set a limit to how many emails you’re comfortable with. My limit is one screen (i.e. no scrolling). My inbox is limited to things I need to do right away or that are so important I want them staring me in the face until they’re done. After you’ve cleared your inbox, it’s time to deal with the ones you need to act on or to keep for reference. First, we’ll set up easy to remember folders in your inbox. Create as many as you like. This is just one method for… read more »

Yesterday’s post talked about the power of deleting emails. Today’s post is about doing your emails. There’s a great rule which basically says if you can do this in 2 minutes or less, do it now. That’s because it will take less time to finish the action in 2 minutes than it will take to park it somewhere else for later and go back to it. So just get it over with—it’s a great feeling! If the task is really important, needs to be done now, but will take more than 2 minutes, keep it right where it is in… read more »

In today’s world, we are bombarded with information at a much higher rate than in years past. One of the biggest culprits is email. If you’re honest with yourself, probably 80% of what lands in your inbox can be deleted immediately or after a quick scan. Imagine if you get 50 to 100 emails a day, 40 to 80 of those can be deleted in a few minutes! How would it feel to have only 10 to 20 emails you need to really think about each day? Here are some guidelines to use for deleting: Junk, spam or chain letters:… read more »

Go through ALL of the emails currently in your inbox, one by one, and decide what you need each email for. Create folders in your inbox with the following names and move each email into the appropriate folder once you make the decision on each of them. Reference: Is this something that I don’t necessarily have to see as it comes in but I need to keep it for future reference? Action: Is this something that I need to do something with or take action on? Pleasure: Is this something that I subscribed to because I am interested in reading… read more »