10 Minutes to Inbox Zero

Let’s clear out your digital mail box!

If you can relate to having thousands of emails in your inbox, we may just have to do a clean break using the 10 Minutes to Inbox Zero rule, it goes as follows:

deal with all email that arrived within the last 48 hours
create a folder called Old Emails
move ALL of the emails sitting in your inbox into the Old Emails folder
YAY, now you’re starting fresh at Inbox Zero

I love this system because it’s quick, I can keep my old emails in case I need to go back to them, all while getting a fresh start with an empty inbox.

And now that we have that fresh start, we just gotta keep up with it.

STAR, FILE, FORWARD, DELETE is a system you can use to manage all future emails.

STAR: in Gmail, you can star an email – I use this feature when an email requires me to take action. If the to-do takes 5 minutes or less I try to get it done during email time. If the to-do takes more than 5 minutes, I schedule it in my calendar to get done at a later date & time.

FILE: creating folders can be super helpful to organize emails you wish to keep. Projects, properties, clients, (insert any topic here).

FORWARD: think twice before forwarding an email.

DELETE: goodbye spam, junk, and all the like (unsubscribe from subscriptions as you go).

Other fun email management tips to help you be a more productive and happy individual:

Unsubscribe to newsletters that don’t bring you joy or flood your inbox (multiple emails a day/week). Narrow your list down to your top 3 newsletters who provide value in a short email once a week / month.

Turn off all email notifications (remember: email isn’t a form of urgent communication).

Limit how many times you check your email per day (try 3: morning, noon, and night).

source: 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management by Kevin Kruse