I’m an inbox zero fan. My optimum situation is inbox zero every afternoon before I turn off the computer to get dinner ready and wind down, but with the move and Christmas, it got totally out of control. I hadn’t done any unsubscribing from the reams of promotional material coming into my inbox for a while; I’d just been hitting delete, but that wasn’t helping future me. Also, with the rise of Substack newsletters, my inbox was stacked to the brim with reading material. Prompted by Elisabeth’s inbox declutter, I decided to do something about it after Christmas. It is now after Christmas, so …
I started by unsubscribing from all the promotional emails I knew I didn’t want to see. I got pretty ruthless with this and even got rid of the Woolworths ones that offer extra specials and points because I hardly go there anymore, so I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of getting so many emails. All the other shops I happily deleted. I’d rather not be coaxed into buying something I didn’t know I wanted until the email arrived in my inbox.
Another big source clogging up my email was the Substack newsletters I’ve subscribed to. The problem with these is that I enjoy reading most of them but not when I’m in my email. Email is for things I need to do something about, not where I want to settle in for a read, so I set up an automatic filter to send these straight to Instapaper, where I can take my time reading them and highlight anything of interest. You can find instructions for how to do this in Gmail here. I used a wildcard to capture all the substack newsletters with one filter (<*.substack.com>). I also subscribe to a small number of other newsletters, so I sent them across to Instapaper. As well as forwarding them, I set the filter to skip my inbox and apply the label “Newsletters”, which will pop them into a Newsletters folder for me. I also moved all the newsletters currently sitting in my inbox to this folder.
The next email category causing me a bit of angst is newsletters from various Christian organisations. Since many contain time-sensitive prayer points or information, forwarding them to Instapaper wasn’t viable. Over time these have accumulated, and I don’t have enough time to read them all and follow along with the prayer points, but they are all doing worthy work, so each time one arrived and it remained unread, I felt a small twinge of guilt. I know, I know, there’s only so much time in the day, so I made some tough calls and unsubscribed to most of them. Hopefully, now I will be able to give the couple I’ve kept the attention they deserve.
Finally, I went through what was left and either actioned them or added them to my to-do list and put them in the appropriate folders. Most of these didn’t take too long, it just necessitated deciding what the next action was, but it was just a lot of deciding!
I now have inbox zero again, so I think it was worth sitting down and tackling it. Do you have messes sitting around because you keep putting off making tiny decisions? What’s your policy for dealing with email?
Comments
9 responses to “Taming my inbox again”
I have so much email stress that I honestly couldn’t even read past the first two paragraphs of this post because I just got so stressed out about the zero inbox goal. LOL. Obviously this is a sign that I need to DO something about it, so thanks for the kick in the pants. Maybe I will do something about it!
Inbox zero isn’t for everyone, but I find it works best for me and how I use my email. You know a quick way to get inbox zero … move everything out of your inbox LOL.
I DO like to have Inbox Almost Zero. I store only the emails that I need to respond to in my inbox (sometimes, realistically speaking, they might have to hang out here for a few days).
Unsubscribing, mostly en masse, to every promotional e-mail/newsletter I had been receiving has made a big difference for me and I’m still amazing how might “lighter” if feels to check my e-mail these days.
I completely understand the guilt aspect (I asked to be removed from the mailing list from a former church, and get the sense that hurt the pastor’s feelings!), and I always wonder if the newsletter I’ve unsubscribed from might have changed my life with some tidbit of information (maybe this sounds ridiculous and lofty, but I do something think that way – FOMO?!). But…it has all been worth it!
I can see how asking to be removed from your church’s email list would be a bit awkward. Since we left our previous church because we moved across town, it was a bit easier for us to ask to be removed from the membership, which then unsubscribed us from any emails being sent out.
Oh my gosh that would be a goal. I have often times tried to attempt this but pronbably not very seriously.
I do subscribe to newsletters regulary but there are still a tone. However, ever since I had email I have an own adress for newslettser so I never have to look at this account. And if it ever is too much I can just close it and get a new onew without unsubscribing. That was the inital plan. I only did that once though… But it does help to get the clutter sorted out.
I much more struggle with the emails coming in that are somewhat important but I dont really need to do anything. I can never figure out if I should keep them, archive them, delete them…
Yes, those emails that you don’t need to do anything do require decisions which is always a pain. I have folders for emails that are receipts, house (anything to do with our house), financial etc., that I file some of that stuff into. I’ll usually mass-delete them after they’re a couple of years old.
Fanstastic job, Melissa. You must feel so light and free 🙂
I have definitely wanted to declutter my mailbox as well and I have – here and there – subscribed from emails that I don’t want to receive anymore, but there is more to do. Inbox Zero ist a dream.
I think the unsubscribe is key. Otherwise, cleaning it out to only have it full again in a day is pretty demoralising.
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