Take Back Control of Your Email Inbox!

Hey, it’s Leigh Ann Betts here for What’s Up Wednesday. I’m the creator of the Declutter Your Life 30 Day Challenge. Today we’re going to talk about email. And is your email controlling you? Or are you controlling it?

Most people I talk to, their email is controlling them. or they are totally avoiding their email. Today let’s tackle email head on and take back control. It is after all, spring cleaning. Let’s declutter the clutter of technology that we have. And our inbox is becoming an ever increasing sore spot for that.

I’m going to give you a few tips today. They may seem super simple. Which they are. But what happens is we kind of conjecture up in our mind that our email has got a life of its own. And I’m going to give you these tips today. And if you try them, let me know how it goes. Because it really does simplify your life. It gives you a strategy.

There’s sort of this love hate relationship with email, right? You know you are out for dinner and you are getting these notifications. And it gives you this low level anxiety all the time and I just want to give you an opportunity, today, to actually face the demon head on. Take a look at your email. And actually focus time on it.

Let’s go through some of my points. The number one thing is never check your email in the morning. You know, if you look at what successful people do, none of them check their email in the morning. What they do is they put themselves first in the morning. So whether they are going for their morning workout or doing a meditation, they are doing that first and foremost. And secondly, they are doing their top priority item. Working on that first. Instead of checking email. Email is similar to Facebook. It’s a slippery slope. You get in there, you start going through it. and you lose track of time. Before you know it, a couple hours have gone by. And you may have not actually got through anything in your email. Because you’re just jumping around, oh I got to do this. I got to do that. and I got to do this.

The other thing with that, too, is successful people check their email once or twice a day. So set the expectation with your friends and family or your clients that you are checking email at X time and X time. And try to commit to that. If you can’t set a time, just commit to checking it once or twice a day.

What else did I want to tell you? Oh, yeah, email notifications. That’s a huge thing. When we’re constantly getting these email notifications, we basically get distracted. Believe it or not, it takes us 25 minutes to get back to our original task after we’ve been distracted. So, get rid of your email notifications if you can. And just start checking email at certain times. And you are going to be able to breathe a huge sigh of relief. Because you are running your email, it’s not running you.

The other thing I wanted to tell you about, oh yeah, organize your inbox. I’m a huge Gmail fan. I use the tabs in the inbox. There’s the primary tab, the promotions tab. The updates tab. So if you’ve got Gmail, use that. it really helps clear out the clutter. And my primary inbox is so much easier to get through. Then I can take time to go through my promotions at different dates and things like that.  So use that.

Then, one thing that I learned that I love is avoid creating a filing system for your email. It’s just a total waste of time. Just archive everything in one big archive. Because the way you can search email now, you can search by the email sender, the email address, and type information you are looking for and it will pull up and search for your email. So instead of wasting time doing the dropdown, finding the right folder, get rid of all of that. It’s going to save you a ton of time in the future. Just archive everything after it’s dealt with.

The fifth thing, and this is my favorite, is basically scheduling email management time in. So, depending on how many emails you get, schedule it into your calendar. What I suggest you do is set a timer for an hour. Basically turn off all distractions. Turn off your phone. Get everything cleared off your desk. And basically focus on going through your email. Set the timer for one hour, start at the top and work through. Any email that will take two minutes or less to action, do it. Do it right then and there. Then, archive or delete it after you’ve done it. use your flag feature in your email provider. I know I’ve got flags, I’ve got stars, all these different things. So if they are items you need to action and go back to at a later date, you can. You can create this different colored stars and things like that, and you can go back and action it when you have more time.

Here’s another one. We’re always subscribing to things. Like I’m going to want you to subscribe to my email. But, you know, sometimes the stuff we’re subscribed to, we don’t read. And it’s just creating stress for us. so, really figure out those people you want to follow. Those emails you want to receive in your inbox. And if you don’t want to get them, clear them out. Unsubscribe. And, feels so good to do that. Enjoy the ones you really enjoy. And get rid of the rest.

And then, email etiquette. I know most people know this, but I know as Canadians, we are always so super polite so you know, if we get an email of someone doing something, we have this response to email thank you. But, don’t. Everybody knows that a thank you is a given. You don’t have to respond a thank you. It’s just causing more stress for everybody. Because it’s creating more emails in the inbox. So just don’t worry about being polite. They know. They’re happy. They don’t have another email just to delete. So you don’t have to say the thank you. Okay?

Then, the other thing is, think twice before you send an email. Do you really need to send the email? Is it something that maybe you could wait to talk about maybe the next time you see the person? That type of thing. So really take a second guess on when you are emailing someone, if it’s absolutely necessary or not.

So if you find this information useful, please share this. I’m trying to get the word out. I’m trying to get my What’s Up Wednesdays out. So, share it on your Facebook page so that other people can get some of these tips. Because I know, like the email, is one of them things everybody talks about. They are kind of this point of avoiding the email.

Start your timer one hour, just do it now, if you have an hour now, try it. Let me know how it goes. Below, write down below how much you get through. You’ll be amazed at when you just put focused attention on email, how it’s not that big monster we make it out to be. So try that. And practice doing that delete, delete, delete. Because you get those endorphins that go off in your brain when you are hitting delete and it feels so good. Enjoy deleting. And, download my 10 tips at LeighAnnBetts.com to get more energy now. And, you can also share that with other people you think that would  help. Until next week, be abundant. Have a great week! Go get those emails!

Photo by Olena Sergienko