Keeping the Inbox Clean: The Last Step

Regardless of which style best represents you, you need to make sure you remember the 5 important steps of maintaining a successful inbox.

1. Address what emails need action as they come in

2. Remove emails you do not need

3. File away other emails

4. Create Rules to keep your inbox tidy

5. Set up your routine

Now that your inbox is clean let’s do a couple of things to make sure it stays that way. We will have one step that will be completely automatic and you won’t have to do a damn thing, the other step will definitely take discipline on your part.

Let’s start with the easy step first, shall we?

We are going to set up a few rules for incoming emails into your inbox. An email Rule is a wonderful little feature that automatically sends an incoming email to a place you designate within your inbox. Right now all of your emails are going straight into your inbox as a default. However, we just finished creating folders for a lot of your emails.

Imagine if all of the pesky newsletters, meeting notes, sales reports, etc. automatically went into their respective folders. You wouldn’t have to worry about moving them, having them clog your inbox, and you can review them at your leisure. Creating Rules effectively can be one of the biggest allies you have when it comes to keeping your inbox clean. You can create Rules based on subject or sender and you can change or delete it at any time. If you are afraid you will miss an email from your boss because of the massive amounts of emails you receive in a day, make her a Rule. Every time she sends you an email it will go into her folder and it will be in bold with the number of unread emails. You will never have to worry about missing another email or dropping the ball on a project because you didn’t see the email.

Now that the easy part is set up, let’s move on to what YOU have to do. Creating a routine for your emails is essential to maintaining a tidy inbox. A routine is something you set up for yourself, that makes sense to you, and is easy for you to do on a regular basis.

For example; you could do something as simple as:

1. Address emails as they come in; act, move, or delete.

2. Before you leave for the day, clean out your inbox.

Regardless of your daily routine, you need to figure out what works best for you and you need to continue to do it every single day. Make it a daily goal to have your inbox completely cleaned out before you leave or only have what you need in your inbox. This way when you come back to work the next morning you are ready to start fresh. Very similar to cleaning up your desk before you go home for the night.