Remember when the “Paperless Society” was going to make us all more effective and efficient? Where the heck did email fit into that thought?聽 With everything available electronic these days, I think the situation has increasingly worsen!聽 Most people (myself included) have way too much email sitting in their inbox. Having so much mail is not efficient. You are probably drowning in it…
How much time do you spend each day in your email program? There are ways to measure this if you really wanted to find out! Check out RescueTime if you want to see more info about that.
When you take a peek at people who are building a business online and check out there email, you usually find the inbox flooded with offers. These email always have urgency built into them! Click here NOW! This is for a limited time ONLY. The price goes up at Midnight! These emails cause you to get a mild to severe case of “The Shiny Object Syndrome” – you see a good offer, so you have to go and chase it!
My first suggestion is to go through and delete all the emails in your inbox that are just offers. I am sure if you sort by sender and look at the marketers’ names, you will see many, many, many emails from the same person or business. If you have NOT purchased anything from them in the past 6 months, unsubscribe from their list! And then, delete all those emails.
OK – that might be tough. Not as easy to click a few buttons and get disconnected, is it? Try this instead. Create a new folder called, “Marketers” and drag all those emails into that folder. This way, they are out of the important Inbox and you can refer to them at a later time.
There actually is some value to read these emails to learn from them. That is right – you can study them to see if they are well written, if they make you want to buy, and see what their call to action is. Not all emails are going to be good ones to study, so you might want to hold onto just to truly Big Marketers’ emails.
Next – learn how to use your SPAM control in your email. Set it to high or moderate. Only check this folder once a day (some folks will say once a week). DO NOT read anything dealing with ACH Failures, or UPS deliveries. Certainly do not open up anything from Hong Kong, Nigeria, England, or another country where they want to give you millions of dollars (or Yen, or Pounds…) Delete it! Better yet – set up a rule in your email to delete it!
Speaking of Rules, create a rule that take the marketing emails you get and stick in that new folder called “Marketers” You can do this by sent address or by the physical address they list in their emails (remember, they have to provide a physical address as part of the CANN SPAM law).
Following these steps will help reduce a lot of the email that you receive. You can now spend your time on more important (and profitable) activities.
Paul, my email is totally out of control. I am embarrassed to tell you how many emails are in my inbox. I definitely need to unsubscribe from a lot of lists.
No need to be embarrassed! I probably have had more… I once declared Email Bankruptcy! It was a good feeling (to start) but the habits need to change to keep a zero inbox!
Yes it is an issue sometimes, & you gave some excellent suggestions…I just run through & tick all the unimportant emails, hit delete & get on with it. A regular unsubscribe of sites who’e use-by date is up is also necessary, as you say. It’s just staying on top of your maintenance really, or it gets on top of you :))
That is the key! Stay on top of things! When it gets too late… UGH! 馃檪
Hi there,
Any suggestions on the quickest way to do this for a mailbox that went swiftly out of control? I have over 3,000 emails sitting in my box and some I wish to keep, some I don’t.
What’s the best way to declutter it?
– Bonnie
Hi Bonnie –
Try sorting by sender or subject. A lot of time you can delete many emails easily when you see they are from the same person or company. The same thing holds true for titles.
Also, you might want to move ALL the emails into a folder and start fresh for your inbox. Make sure you stay on top of you inbox so it does not get out of control. Then when you have time, you can go through (a little bit at a time) the folder with all the other emails that you stored away.
Hope that helps.
Paul,
They say the easiest things are usually staring us in the face, which accounts for why we miss them!
I can’t believe I didn’t think of that (since I use folders now to save special email).
I will get right on it and thank you so much for the quick reply!
– Bonnie xo
Great! Keep the questions coming!
You are always helpful! Thank you!
Glad I can help, Lyn!
Aah … I’m sighing with relief that you wrote this post Paul!! I have 2k emails which I was tempted just to delete en masse, but couldn’t because I knew there were a few I wanted in there. But I DO want to adopt an ’empty at the close of the day’ policy going forward.
Now I see your option of removing them all to a folder to sort gradually at a later date can give me this option!
My next question of course is – how do I transfer 20000 emails across to this new folder in an efficient quick way?? If you could tell me I’d be most appreciative!
Cheers
Tanya (from the UK, but not sending out spam, honest!)
PS – I pointed someone in a Facebook group I belong to, to join your 28 day ecourse last week 馃檪
Is this the missing email, Tanya? What email program are you using? I can better answer your question if I knew that piece of info. Thanks!
Hmm – I replied but think it got deleted by accident so I’ll try again.
Love your idea of removing old emails to a separate folder, then sorting through them gradually. I’ve been wanting to adopt an ’empty at the end of the day’ inbox policy for a while, and that would allow me to do it with the (blushes!) 2000 emails I have allowed to build up in my inbox!
Can you tell me what the best way is to actually transfer that many emails across, in one go??
Many thanks
Tanya
PS – sent someone to join up your 28 day ecourse the other day 馃檪
Hi Tanya –
Sorry your first message floated into the ether… Perhaps it will show up some day 馃檪
I am not sure what you mean by “transfer that many emails across?” Are you looking to put them all in one folder like I suggested and starting clean and then going through that folder? Or are you asking about something else?
Thanks (and thanks for the referral!)