How I Keep My Inbox Organized in Just a Few Minutes a Day
Have you ever wished that you had more control over your inbox? That it didn't seem like you always had 100 things to catch up on and respond to? Today, I'm going to share how I keep my inbox organized in just a few minutes a day, and how to organize your inbox for increased productivity!
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Work and school often center around your email inbox. It's a hub for communication.
Email is a crucial part of daily life. Sometimes, you can spend hours just going through emails, figuring out what you need to respond to, and what is okay to delete.
This leads to the important question of how to organize your inbox, so it doesn't feel like it sucks hours of your time away when you open it.
I've spent many hours in my inbox, and I finally figured out a system that allows me to use email as a tool instead of a time waster.
Currently, I have 18 emails in my personal inbox using this method.
Here is how to organize your inbox in only a few minutes a day! You may even be able to get to inbox zero!
How I Keep My Inbox Organized in Just a Few Minutes a Day
I have multiple email accounts, but I mainly use this method for my personal email because I know I won't have access to my school email after I graduate from college, and because my personal email account is my main one.
You might be starting out with thousands of emails in your inbox. It will take time to get your email inbox organized, but you will get there!
This system has two parts. You can either set it up all at once or you can dive right into doing the daily routine to cut back on the number of emails in your inbox. The initial setup will take some time, but your inbox will be organized a lot quicker!
How to Organize Your Inbox: Initial Setup
1. Set Up Email Folders
Looking at the thousands of emails you have in your inbox can be overwhelming!
Start by identifying which emails are important. These are the emails you'll actually need to save so you have documentation or are from friends/family.
After you decide which emails are the most important, what common themes do you see?
Create folders in your email account for each of these common themes. You don't want to make them too broad or too narrow, and you can always add subfolders too! In Gmail, these folders are "Labels."
These are some of the folders and subfolders I use.
- Account Info
- College
- Subfolders for each year
- Family/Important
- High School
- Work
- Subfolders for each job
Next, all you have to do is decide what to do with all of your emails!
2. Decide Where Emails Should Go
It's time to delete and organize as many emails as possible, which you can do all at once, or you can do a little bit at a time by deleting a few more emails than you get every day.
I like to only have emails that I'm currently waiting for updates on or that I need to take action on in my inbox.
For example, if I need to reply to an email. it stays in my inbox. If I'm waiting for a package to ship, I keep all of the emails about the shipment in my inbox.
I always try to have as few emails in my inbox as possible.
If you have any email subscriptions that you don't want, now is a good time to search for all of those emails and delete them after you unsubscribe. It's a quick win for your email inbox!
How to Organize Your Inbox: Daily Routine
When I had loads of emails in my inbox, I'd delete and organize a few more emails than I got each day.
Now when I open my inbox in the morning, I just go through all of my new emails and do one of the following options for each email.
Emails that I need to revisit soon, I mark as unread as soon as I open them, so I go back to them the next time I open my inbox.
Throughout the day, I repeat this process whenever I open my email.
1. Delete
I try to delete as many emails as possible. I wear a Garmin smartwatch, so throughout the day if I get an email that I don't want, I delete it immediately from my notifications.
It's like it wasn't even there!
2. Unsubscribe
Likewise, you should unsubscribe from as many emails as possible, especially if you feel swamped by email.
I don't subscribe to any newsletters on my personal email account, and you may want to avoid doing so as well, unless you open and actually read almost every email you get from that blog/website.
I know this advice may make you unsubscribe from my blog and that's ok! 😂
3. Respond
The third option for an email is to respond to it. Now you may not have time to respond to it right away, and that's perfectly fine! I don't always respond to emails right away!
When I know I'm going to respond later, I flag it.
After I respond, it's out of my inbox again!
4. Move to a Folder
The last resort for an email is to move it to one of your long-term folders.
Whenever I put emails in a folder, it means that whatever the email contained is completed or past, and I'm simply keeping it for reference.
I know I'll need to go through these emails and delete some of them eventually, but when they aren't in my inbox, it feels a lot more organized, and I don't have that many emails in my folders anyway.
I'll take 10 emails in my inbox over 500 any day because it makes it a lot harder for an email to get lost in the chaos.
Final Notes on How I Keep My Inbox Organized in Just a Few Minutes a Day
The main point to remember with this system is to always delete more emails than you get until your inbox is down to only the important emails that you need in your inbox.
Because email is a hub for work and school communication, getting in control of your inbox will help you be more productive in your daily life!
To sum everything up, to organize your emails you should:
- Delete all of the emails you can
- Unsubscribe from unnecessary newsletters
- Put all of the emails you don't need to take any more action on (but still may need for reference) into folders
If you enjoyed this post about how to organize your inbox, you can read these ones too!
- How I Created a Minimalist Phone to Cut My Screen Time in Half
- The 10-Step Guide to Staying Productive When You Feel Burnt Out
- 10 Easy + Efficient Ways to Unplug from Technology
- How to Increase Your Productivity When You are Online
I hope you enjoyed this post about how to organize your inbox! How do you keep your inbox organized?
Remember to share this post if you enjoyed it! Thank you! :)
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