It finally happened. I hit “delete all” on my inbox.
(Ok, there was a little more to it than that. I’m not crazy.)
Have you heard of inbox zero – the idea of getting your email inbox completely cleared by the end of the day? A coworker shared not long ago that this was how he operated, and I was genuinely shocked. Then I told my wife about this novel idea and was aghast to find out this is how she manages her inbox too!
Who can delete all of their emails? What if you need something later on? Have I been emailing wrong my entire life?
An important detail for you to know: My work email is the same as the address I had as a student from 2015-2018. I didn’t delete emails then either. So, when I made the decision to take the leap and clear my inbox, I started with over 20,000 unread messages.
I started small, running a process to delete everything older than 1 year old. A few hours later, once I was sure the world had not fallen apart, it was time to move forward.
I am on A LOT of email lists. I started by doing searches for frequent news letters that I receive or product infos that clog my inbox. I began unsubscribing from the unneeded ones and deleted all of them from my inbox.
I couldn’t delete everything so I came up with some folders to help me stay organized, creating folders for major project areas (Example: Video, Social, and Recruitment) and others like “Needs Work,” “Quick Reference,” and “Examples.”
The projects folders are self-explanatory, so here is an explanation of how I use the others:
Needs work: messages that I need to respond to but don’t have the information to do so right now.
Quick reference: Emails that I reference often to perform my duties. Some of the items here are messages with links to portals and web addresses that I need for a season.
Examples: This is where I store messages that I want to reference for projects that are coming soon but not on my plate currently.
After I moved the needed items to the proper folders, I did something that honestly terrified me: Ctrl + A, Delete (AKA select all and delete).
I won’t lie, I got that feeling in my stomach like I had just done something REALLY stupid. Then I took a breath.
A few weeks later, the world is still spinning and I’m actually more productive than I was before the great delete of 2021.
I don’t hit inbox zero every day, but I typically end the day with less than 5 messages in the inbox.
My inbox is now more of a living to-do list than a haystack filled with needles.
How do you manage your inbox? Do you aim for inbox zero? What folders, organizational methods and tricks make your inbox work for you? Tell me in the comments!
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