My email in-box is a mess. My friend and business partner, Diane Quintana, suggested that I would be less frustrated and more efficient if I took some time to declutter my email in-box. After all, my paper files are in good shape. Why am I balking at spending the time to declutter the email in-box?
I decided to take some time to declutter my email in-box one step at-a-time.
Here are the 3 steps I followed to declutter my email in-box:
1. Unsubscribe
The first step is to unsubscribe from email that I no longer have an interest in. I have a lot of emails from companies I have purchased an item from. These are relatively easy to unsubscribe. I also have been getting more and more political emails. Time will tell if unsubscribing from political emails works.
Did you know that you do not unsubscribe from spam? Unsubscribing from spam only gives you more spam. Just mark that email as spam and move on.
I have been working on this over several days this week as new emails keep cropping up. I am looking forward to fewer unwanted emails as time goes on.
2. Bulk deletes
I have done this at times in the past with my EarthLink account where I can easily see what is on a page of emails and then select “delete all”. This still makes me nervous and does not seem for me to be much faster than just scrolling through and deleting each one I know I don’t want to keep. I am not opening these emails but just looking at the subject and the sender.
However, if your email box is really overwhelming you can bulk delete unread emails that have been hanging around way too long. No one is expecting a response from you after a few months.
You can also bulk delete by selecting one person or one vendor and asking the computer to ‘find’ all the email from that person or vendor. Then scan the selection to see if there is anything worth keeping. If there is not, delete them all.
When you have a conversation going – delete the thread when finished.
I did some research to find out how to set up showing messages arranged by conversations. I had a few of those and I could see how to delete the entire conversation easily. My conversations were usually no more than three emails. I could see this as being more helpful if you were working on a group project. Once the project was completed it would have all the emails in one space and easy to delete.
3. Create folders
Creating folders is something I used to do more in the past. As I was going through my emails this time, I had a couple of projects going that made good sense to put together new folders for. The folders will pull those emails out of view and make it easier for me to find what I am looking for.
Decluttering email is like decluttering your home. It is not a once do and then done deal. This needs to be an ongoing process if it is going to work.
Decluttering my email in-box reduces my stress and saves me from wasting time looking for that one email that I need. Decluttering my email in-box means that I have more available space for the important emails that I need to stay on top of. I feel more accomplished and in control. The plan is now to put the task of decluttering my email into my weekly schedule.
If you are ready to organize and declutter your email , or ready to work on any other organizing project join Diane Quintana and me in our Clear Space For You virtual clutter support group. The group will offer ideas, support, and gentle accountability for working on developing plans or projects. We meet every Monday (except for public holidays) at noon ET on Zoom.
Jonda S. Beattie, Professional Organizer owner of Time Space Organization, and co-owner of Release, Repurpose, Reorganize. She is based in the Metro-Atlanta area. As presenter, award-winning author, as well as a retired special education teacher she uses her listening skills, problem solving skills, knowledge of different learning techniques, ADHD specialty, and paper management skills to help clients.
I have three email accounts, so this is kind of a pain. But I am motivated by your idea of searching for a certain conversation, thread, or sender. I’m going to go do that right now and try to reduce a little bit. Thanks for the inspiration. I know if I did this once a week it would really help.
I agree with your methods. However, a faster method of bulk deletion, instead of asking your inbox to find a particular person, is to sort by sender. It’s so satisfying to be able to scroll a page that only has Kohl’s, for example, or Chico’s, or Outback Steakhouse and delete by chunks. Even if you’ve got multiple senders with only a dozen instead of a page, it’s easier to eyeball that page for bulk deletion when it’s alphabetized. Your brain can process those more easily.
Like Seana, I have multiple email accounts; unlike Seana, I have more like 10 than three. However, they are all sent directly to one main inbox in Outlook, meaning I never have to “check” any particular inbox; it comes to one place. When I check email first thing in the morning, I sort by sender, because there I know there are a few senders (like my website sending me notifications that I’ve added graphics or updated text, or a survey company I’m debating quitting) that I don’t need to read what’s sent, so I can quickly delete those without reading.
One tip I’d add to your wisdom is to have email automation rules in place. Just as you’ve created folders, I have sub-folders such that, for example, all email from POINT for general NAPO email bypasses my inbox entirely and goes to that folder, which I read once a day. Having each POINT group (the chapter, my SIG, etc.) go to its own folder means that non-urgent but vaguely interesting email never clutters my inbox. It’s very refreshing. ;-)