Organize IT

View original image

This guest post was written by John Anyasor of HiLife2B.

Email has been the culprit of countless wasted hours for as along as the internet has been in existence. Spam, promotions, emails from family members and coworkers, newsletters… it’s all too much. And this doesn’t even include the colossal number of replies that you have to send in response. I can’t take it anymore. Who owns my life? Me or my inbox? The answer to that is obvious of course, but achieving it is easier said than done, right? How are we going to curtail the use of our email if it just keeps coming into our inbox? Well, it is actually easier than you think. It’s all a matter of knowing how to control your emails and better manage your inbox.

Delete it
The solution to all of our problems is right here. Just delete it. I can hear your pleas against your better judgment already. “Oh man, but I want to read this article later!” or, “I can’t get back to her right now… I don’t know if I ever will… but I might!” Hold your horses. If a certain message is really that important to you, it’s better to answer it right then and there instead of letting it pile up with all the other junk in your inbox. Here are some things that you should definitely get rid of.

• Messages you’ve already looked at and don’t need anymore (obviously).
• Time sensitive emails that are way past responding to.
• Duplicate emails under different titles from the same sender(s).
• Spam!

Save it
Now I know there are messages you might want to save from the almighty power of the delete button, so I suggest that with these messages you use the save button or archive it away (depending on which email provider you use). With AOL (yes, I don’t use Gmail, sorry for sticking with the same email address for years) you can instantly move email to a folder for the messages that you just can’t live without. Only save what is necessary and fall under these guidelines:

• Messages from friends, family and relatives that have meaning.
• Introductory emails with passwords and usernames.
• Useful information that you know you’ll go back to.

Regulate it
Through this seemingly arduous process of putting your email on the chopping block, don’t forget that you have a life. Don’t spend too much time focusing on your email or trying to achieve that spiritual inbox zero level. The problem for most of us is that by focusing on cleaning out our inbox, we get caught up in reading and analyzing all of our emails. Before you know it you’ve wasted hours reading, deleting, and saving mail that should have only taken you about ten minutes to a half hour at most.

The other matter to consider here is where you put your email address. Lots of people half-heartedly sign up for newsletters, social networking sites and email services without knowing the frequency of updates which they will get. Keep in mind these important statements for managing your messages:

• Do you actually read these messages? It’s easy to keep an email with the intention of reading it later, but most of the time they are never looked at. If you’re on Facebook regularly, do you also need email notifications when somebody leaves a message on your wall?
• Can you keep up with the number of emails you get? You’ve accepted the updates and newsletters, but if they’re sent everyday and you can’t keep up, you might as well end/change your subscription.
• Has checking your email become an addiction? I identify with this one myself. At most, I check every half-hour. It’s bad, but I usually try to keep it down to only a few times a day. If you’ve let yourself get a regular stream of emails it’s much harder to resist checking your inbox all the time.

After all is said and done, by the end of this lesson you should have a clean and tidy inbox. Whether it takes an hour or even a couple of days, cleaning out your inbox is the best thing you can do to get yourself organized . Remember, it can be easy. So go out and get revenge.

Other posts of interest

• Taming Your Inbox At Work
• Killing Email: How And Why I Ditched My Inbox
• Inbox Taming For Busy People
• Clearing Your Inbox With Minimal Pain

Related reading

• Best Of Organize IT: August 2009
• 4 Good Habits To Save Yourself (And Others) From Inbox Hell
• Write An Article For Organize IT
• The Good Email Etiquette Guide
• Video Of The Week: One Way To Get Revenge