PTT: Email Hoarding

Professional Tip Tuesday

Let's hope it never gets this bad.
Photo Credit: www.aetv.com/hoarders

True confessions: I am a hoarder.. to the point that I am actually sort of surprised that A&E hasn't picked up my story yet. But then again, a special on email hoarding may not be top rated episode.

That's right, I am an email hoarder. And it becomes so overwhelming, that it just gets worse and worse.

One of my old email accounts has given up on me. It has completely stopped counting the number of emails in my inbox. It just says 1K+ where a number should appear. But to be fair, that is where I send all my promotional emails and I check it 3-4 times a year max.

Anyhow, I am working really hard to stop that unavoidable email clutter in my new personal email and work email inbox. But it's not an easy task! It seems like you really have to be on top of your game.. and that's not a guarantee. I still end up spending 15-20 minutes every few weeks deleting and filling old emails.

Today's Professional Tip Tuesday is for those of you out there that have more emails cluttering your inbox than hours in a day.

The  4 best tips for managing a case of email inbox clutter.

1. Make Folders

• Any organizational show I have ever watched have offered the same words of wisdom: There should be a place for everything! Belong to a club or an organization? Mom emailing you with family pics? Keeping in touch with your old manager? Make folders for easy access and a clean inbox. 
• Some examples of folders that help me keep my stuff organized - "Family", "Friends", and "Network". They can be even more specific than that too. If you really want to get fancy you can even have folders inside of folders!
• **A little bonus tip: Make sure you are saving those emails that are complimenting you and your work in a special folder. Those will come in handy when it's your annual review!

2. Create Rules! ..and use the folders! 

• This is fantastic thing that is a total inbox saver. In Outlook you can right click an email and "Create Rule". From three you can direct emails from a particular person or containing a certain subject line to go into the correct folder. 
• It will ask if you would like to "Run this task now.." Clicking this box will automatically move them into the indicated folders which makes your job even easier! 
• There are similar features in other email domains too. In gmail there are tags - but so far those haven't been quite as user friendly for me. 

3. Cut the ties - completely unsubscribe!

• Unsubscribing always seems like such a hassle. BUT do you know what is even more of a hassle? Receiving more junk email than I can handle. 
• Set aside 15 minutes from your day and unsubscribe from all those silly promotional emails you don't really care about. It will be so worth it in the end!

4. If you read it, delete it! 

• This is not a catchall rule. That's why it is number 4 on this list of 4 tips. Those folders will be your savior for keeping track of those important emails. But for those emails you deem unimportant - just click delete!
• Here's an example of the day in the life of an email hoarder: 
• I subscribe to HuffPost Women daily emails. I love the stories! I am infamous for not deleting them after I read it. For some reason I always think I might want to go back and read it again.. but will I? No. So I think it's safe to hit the delete button. 

Those are my quick and easy tips for cleaning out that inbox. What are your ideas for staying organized? Comment below!