I’m starting to think that the clutter in my life is breeding while I’m asleep. I finish my day feeling like I’m on top of what I need to do then, come the next morning, I discover a list that I made days ago that had slipped down the side of my desk or the neatly stacked pile of reading has doubled over night.
Enough I thought! I’m meant to be able to fit all of my possession into the boot of my car (ahh yes the bliss of being a house sitter) so how has clutter crept back into my life? If I’m truly honest it crept in because I ignored it, although I’m not sure if I’m ready to be that bluntly honest with myself so for the moment I’m stick with my breeding theory.
I decided last Friday that I would begin eliminating my clutter by dealing with my emails.
I have two email accounts. In my personal email inbox I had 67 emails which are either read and ignored or not read yet. In my folders I had managed to file away around 450 unread emails. 450!! When was I ever going to find the time, or the interest, to read them all? In my work email inbox I had 162 emails that I needed to read and deal with. This is the stuff of nightmares so urgent action was needed.
3 days later I had 22 unread emails in my folders and only 20 emails in my inbox waiting for my attention. My work inbox now has only 67 emails, with plans to cut that in half this week. How do I get it all under control?
My first tip is be brutal. I applied the 80/20 rule and figured that 80% of the information that I wanted to read came from only 20% of my emails so I unsubscribed from 16 work lists and kept 4 (this is only 25% but its a good start for me). I deleted the remaining emails. Having 460 emails in your trash folder, ready to be emptied, is a truly liberating feeling. I applied the same logic to my personal subscription lists. Whenever I felt myself resisting, “I really like getting those weekly recipes from Mindfood Magazine, they always look so tasty”, I reminded myself that all of the information that would no longer be flooding my inbox could still be found online when I needed it.
My second tip is to use filters for your emails. Once you’ve set up a filter, (simple to do – honest! For Outlook take a look at your toolbar – Tools, Rules Wizard and then follow the instructions) any incoming emails to which that filter applies will automatically be sent to the folder that you’ve specified. This works for me for two reasons. Firstly, I write articles and submit them to about 400 online directories. In return those directories send me their compulsory newsletters which I don’t have the time, or inclination, to read so they go straight to a folder which I delete on a regular basis. Secondly, there are far less distractions in my day as I don’t get tempted to read every email the moment it pops into my inbox. I am also reorganising my work week (which you can read about tomorrow) and will now set aside time during the week to read emails. Now, instead of a scattergun approach and lots of time wasted reading an email, thinking I should take some action about that email, getting distracted by another email, having to reread the first email because I’ve forgotten what it’s about, I will have set days to focus on emails relating to a certain topic.
Do you have any other tips for taking control of emails, or any other technology, that is gobbling up your time? I would love to hear your thoughts.
