If you told me you’re trying to get your work life in order, I wouldn’t be surprised if your inbox(es) is one of them. You just can’t stand the hundreds of emails you receive every day or having to sift through everything just to find ones that actually matter. Or it’s a tradition for you to miss that one important email from a client when you need to act on it right away. Check out our inbox management tips and tricks below if you’re struggling to keep your inbox tidy.
Inbox Management Tips: The Almost Inbox Zero Organization
1. Keep your Newsletter subscriptions for those you actually read
Oftentimes, the reason why your inbox is full of clutters is because of those piling newsletters you let sit in the corner of your inbox and never touch. If you’re like me, you’d let them stay and gather cobwebs and before you realize it, there are thousands of unread emails you need to sort out, most of which you probably received years ago. You don’t need to waste your time deleting those emails every time you receive them, it’s better to just unsubscribe.
Tip: Every time you sign up for a new online account and receive a welcome email, unsubscribe immediately.
2. Filter out certain phrases from your inbox
If it’s impossible for you to unsubscribe to all newsletters, you can always benefit from the filter features of your email client. For example, you can filter out the word “unsubscribe” from the settings so that kind of email won’t land in your inbox. You can even block unwanted emails, send them straight to spam, or categorize them into desired folders as soon as you receive them.
3. Label and/or categorize your emails
This is one of the very useful features that email users rarely use. You can start categorizing the emails you receive according to their type or whatever you think works best for you. For example, you can create “work”, “newsletter”, or “invoice” labels and assign them to emails you regularly receive and archive the emails once you’re done checking them so they don’t end up taking up space in your inbox. That’d certainly sort out most of the clutter and make it easier for you to find things you already categorized whenever you need to go back to them.
4. Make use of built-in template feature
Why waste your time typing to reply to a bunch of emails you receive every morning? God knows how inconvenient it is having to craft email responses every single time, not to mention if you’re prone to typos while having to send a longer response? Or how time-consuming it is having to find that one perfect email you crafted weeks ago in your sent folder when you want to reuse it? Create several effective templates which you can send in just a few clicks. You’ll increase productivity, save a lot of time and kiss typos goodbye.
5. Make use of email forwarding
If you handle multiple email accounts, it’s always a great idea to benefit from email forwarding and use one account as a central hub for everything. This way, you can save more time and manage your emails from multiple accounts in one place. No more going back and forth between accounts! Check out how to configure email forwarding on Gmail or Outlook.
6. Allocate a specific time of day to take care of your inbox
Here’s the tip: If you’re the type to receive a bunch of work emails, don’t keep checking back and forth a dozen times a day. Email can be distracting and keep you from doing other more important things that you actually need to take care of, so it’s not a bad idea to allocate a specific time to check your inbox, like only 30 minutes a day, at 9 in the morning. Work on your emails based on the level of urgency.
7. Accept that Inbox Zero is probably impossible
As the sub-title of this post suggests, inbox zero mentality, as popularized by productivity expert Merlin Mann, is almost too good to be true (unless you’re okay with mass deleting everything in your inbox). It’s not worth getting overwhelmed and losing your mind over this obsession–and it’s probably kind of weird to be obsessed by your inbox, anyway. This tip might sound weird considering the title of this article, but hey, the purpose here is to give you practical tips on how to manage your inbox efficiently, not to revolve your world around it! We’re trying to keep it real for you.
8. Delegate your inbox management
If all else fails, or you have no desire to do everything by yourself, simply delegate the management of your email to other people, like a virtual assistant. We can do it for you. We’re no stranger to inbox management; just throw everything at us and we’ll get it done so you can worry less about your inbox.
Some ideas of tasks you can delegate to your virtual assistant:
- Declutter your inbox
- Archive and categorize your emails
- Create labels
- Create personalized email templates
- Migrate your old emails to another email address, including labels/folders
- And more!
I hope that these tips will help you with your almost inbox zero mission. Stay safe and just head over to this link if you feel like you’re giving up managing your email.
Cheers!
