How to Organize Your Email

Even the most organized people can get behind on emails or have the shame laden red circle above the app showing hundreds (if not thousands) of unread emails. If you’ve ever been at the coveted inbox zero, you know how good it can feel. It sets the tone for a great day, helps keep anxiety at bay and sets you up to be a far more productive person. Here are a few steps you can take to get your email organized, whether you haven’t touched your junk mail since 2007 or you’re at inbox zero.

The first step in getting an organized email is to look at it. We know many clients that adopt the out of sight, out of mind perspective, and while this seems to work on the surface, it can truly wreak havoc on your mind. It’s comparable to when you have 10+ tabs open on a computer - it’s doing overtime in the background. 

Now that the hard part (committing) is over, it’s time to get down to business. Consider if it would be helpful to your system if you set up different emails addresses for different subjects that end up in your inbox. One for work, one for personal and one for newsletters and brand emails. This way, you know which way to prioritize each inbox, you can minimize the amount of times you check your phone and keep track of what’s actually coming through your database. 

Speaking of keeping track, it’s time to have a party solely dedicated to unsubscribing from emails not meant for you. Grab a glass of wine or a snack and sit down with your inbox. What stores send emails to you that you no longer shop at? What sales do you need to avoid to save up for a future holiday? What newsletter did you end up on because of a one time purchase? This is precious space, and it’s up to you to take care of it. 

Go through your junk mail and delete it for good. Skim it to make sure nothing important went there, but if it’s over 2-3 months old, it likely wasn’t that important after all. Once it’s clean, set a weekly check-in to scan for important emails and to clear it out. 

Once you’re through the weeds, it’s time to create folders. It’s up to you to figure out what folders will make sense for your email. Whether it’s folders for clients, your kids, newsletters, to do now, to do later or travel, take inventory of what’s come into your inbox and what needs to be sorted vs. deleted. Once the folders are created, after a task or an email is read, filter it into the folder as a job well done. 

By now, you should be feeling pretty great. You’ve tackled what some people go their whole lives ignoring and you should be proud. Now, let’s add email maintenance to your schedule. Truly, schedule in the time to check it, to answer emails and to clean it out - even better if all this happens in one block of time. A great goal is to get to inbox zero every. single. day. If there’s an email that requires more time or a follow up, create a folder that houses these as if they’re an extension of your to-do list. 

Over time, less emails will end up in your inbox, you’ll have more bandwidth to focus on the important ones and less time will be spent in front of a screen. 

Organizing your email is just as important as organizing your home. If this is something you’ve been putting off, it’s time to gain back control. We’re here for you on the other side and can’t wait to celebrate this important milestone in your cyber career. 

Now that the hard part (committing) is over, it’s time to get down to business. 

It’s time to have a party solely dedicated to unsubscribing from emails not meant for you. Grab a glass of wine or a snack and sit down with your inbox. What stores send emails to you that you no longer shop at? What sales do you need to avoid to save up for a future holiday? What newsletter did you end up on because of a one time purchase? This is precious space, and it’s up to you to take care of it. The perfect solution for this problem is a program called Unroll.Me. Enter your email address and it will immediately gather a list of all of your subscription emails, so you can instantly unsubscribe from what you don’t want. They don’t sell your email either. A game changer for inbox clean up.