How to Get Your Email Cleaned Up

Are you an email hoarder or are your emails getting out of control? Here are our tips on cleaning up your email!

You may love living with tons of email but if you can consistently be under 10 in  your inbox your life will dramatically improve. Also, someone just fell out of their seat by thinking you could have your email under 10!

You can and you will.  Here is why:

So if your email is burning you, here are the steps to take to get it back under control. 

• Admit there is a problem. Write down the total emails in your inbox and the date of the oldest one. 
• Work from the bottom up.  The problem with email is that people too often start at the top. Well one email leads to another. Instead start at the the bottom. 
• Set a goal.  Can you clear out 25 emails every day?
• Set up folders.  We like 5 key ones:
  • Marketing
  • Sales
  • Service
  • Billing
  • Internal
• From there you can add subfolders.  Everything should be in there
• Next, set it up so email is a landing pad not a destination. You need to take emails and create tasks in your management system. This works because:
  • Tasks have due dates
  • Tasks can be prioritized
  • If you won the lottery at lunch, other people could dive in and do your job
• Shut your email off at least 2x per day to get work done 
• Emails should be at no more than 10 every day when you go home and 0 on Fridays