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Escape from Email Hell

January 2009

How many emails are in your inbox right now? 25? 100? 1000? (Yes, I do know a few people with over 1000 emails in their inbox – yikes!)

If you have more than 50 emails in your inbox right now, that is too many. In fact, less than 50 is ideal.

Working from home or virtually as so many of us do, our inboxes literally become our offices. So when our
inboxes get out of control it is the equivalent of walking into an office covered in paper, folders, books, sticky notes…and hey, is that my lunch from last week in the corner?

Seems a silly topic in some ways (clean up my inbox? yawn…) but really, if you feel at all overwhelmed by ‘what to do first?’ when you open up your email, it is time to do something about it. An inbox out of control can be a real drag on your motivation (and hence your bottom line).

Cleaning up the flow of your inbox can help improve the flow of your business.

What should be in your inbox?

Your inbox is only for things that require ACTION on your part, everything else must go!

This may be a refrain for you—especially if you’ve used your inbox as a ‘catch all’. Start to consider your inbox a form of your to-do list and it will be much easier to clean it up and keep it clean.

Before we dive into the five steps of cleaning up your inbox, you first want to set your “email threshold”. What is your
target maximum number of emails in your inbox? Mine is 50 emails. Anything more than that and I get the willies and end
up doing a mad-dash to clean it up. I average between 30-40 emails left in my inbox on most days.

Less is better when it comes to setting your threshold – don’t say 200 just because you can’t seem to get below that!

Get into the habit of following these five steps each day when you first login to your email.

5 steps to a clean inbox

Step 1 – Delete!!

Go through your inbox and delete any of your junk emails – the emails that are totally useless and have no benefit to
you and your business. This can include spam, jokes from friends, newsletters you don’t read, etc.  Do not get sucked into reading or responding to any emails in this first step.  Do the initial ‘delete scan’ of everything in your inbox before you go any further.

TIP: If you can find the information online, don’t keep the email. For example, order notices – there are copies in your shopping cart so don’t bother keeping the emails. Delete them!

Step 2 – Move

Next step is to move things out of your inbox and into folders.  Anything that is ‘read only’ (i.e. newsletters) or FYI only (i.e. information on a future class) needs to get out of your inbox (betting this is 90% of what is taking up space in your inbox right now!)

Set up a folder system that works for you with different folders for clients, projects, newsletters, etc.

TIP: Set up sorting “Rules” in your email program, which will automatically sort certain emails into the folders you choose, so they never land in your inbox at all. For example, you can set any newsletters to go directly into a To Read folder that you can then check once a week.

After Step 2, the only emails left in your inbox are those that require action.

Step 3 – Delegate

Who is taking care of things like customer service inquiries? If it is you, it may be time to invest in a Virtual Assistant or
some other support person to help with these emails.  It is important to respond to these emails in a timely manner – if they become lost in your inbox you could be losing out on potential income.

Once you have someone on your team who can respond to these kinds of emails just forward the emails to them. No further
action required on your part at all – yay!

Step 4 – Prioritize

Now, the only things left in your inbox are items that require your attention.

What are the most important emails to respond to first ?

• Those closest to the money! Joint venture related emails, product creation emails, marketing activities, etc.

• Pick three items to focus on each day and flag those as ‘green’ (for go!) in your inbox.

• If you complete those first three go ahead and do some more…but aim to do at least three each day.

TIP: I open any messages that I plan on tending to each day, so the message is sitting open in my Outlook awaiting my response (and I don’t forget about it).

Step 5 – Ignore

How often do you check for new messages throughout the day? It is REALLY easy to get sucked into your inbox every time you hear that magical ‘new mail’ beep – which of course can wreak havoc on your productivity.  I’ve heard some people say once or twice a day is a good goal here, but that seems a bit strict to me. I literally work out of my inbox so at the very least I’m checking my email a couple of times each morning and afternoon (and yes, I’ll admit most evenings too).

The key is to stop checking your email constantly throughout the day – set a plan to check at certain times only and resist
the temptation to check in outside of those times.

Repeat these five steps every day; it shouldn’t take you more than 10-15 minutes once you get into the habit.

TIP: The last thing I like to do on Friday is review my inbox. Quite often I will find things that are already taken care of so I can do my favourite thing – delete or move! This gives you a ‘fresh’ inbox to start with on Monday morning.

Tina Forsyth is the author of “Becoming an Online Business Manager”. She writes and consults in advanced online marketing and business systems for business owners and their support teams. http://www.onlinebusinessmanager.com/

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