Year-End Relief: Fire Your Inbox

by | Dec 5, 2012

Have you ever moved from one employer to another?

As you neared your final day –assuming they didn’t immediately show you the door –

Do you remember looking at your email’s overstuffed Inbox?

  • Emails you opened 1,000 times
  • Emails you intended to file
  • Emails you should have deleted

You checked Select All and hit Delete.

  • Ah, the power
  • The unmitigated joy
  • You fired your Inbox

As we approach another year’s end, why not relive the relief?

Go ahead – fire your Inbox.

Delightful Delete

I know what you are thinking.

This sounds like a post from Shoulder Satan.

  • Dare you do it?
  • Can you actually fire your Inbox?
  • Can you revel in delightful delete?

Okay, I understand the need for caution. But, why not capture some of the beauty of an empty Inbox?

Do you even remember what an empty Inbox looks like?

Let’s review a few methods for getting there.

#1 – Final Day Flush

We featured this method in our opening.

  • You Select All
  • You click on Delete
  • You sayYes to Are you sure?

Warning: This method is not for the Faint-of-Heart, the Perennial Procrastinator or the Follow-up Failure.

The method takes some serious *ahem* fortitude.

  • Do not engage if you have Flushers’ Remorse
  • If you put off saving documentation you need, stop that flush
  • Likewise, if you know you meant to follow-up, forget flushing

However, if you are crazy-good organized or know what’s left is for your reading pleasure only – flush away.

#2 – Seek and Destroy

They’re lurking in your Inbox.

Those hunks of hoarder’s paradise.

  • Newsletters you’ll never read
  • Unsolicited products you’ll never buy
  • The send in 30 seconds or die emails that are way past due

If you’re like me, you can recognize them in an instant.

  1. Seek and sort by sender
  2. Select the horrific hunks
  3. Delete and destroy

#3 – Sort and Clear

This method will probably appeal to the procrastinator in all of us.

If you just can’t deal with the bulging Inbox, but hold emptiness close to your heart, try this.

  1. Dump the obviously unwanted
  2. File the rest in a Review Later folder

Voilà! Empty Inbox.

A twist on this is creating folders for the Seriously Old and Not So Old.

Personally, I’m not a fan of this method because I know what will happen.

Next year at this time, I’ll have two extra folders with leftover emails.

Empty But Fulfilled

Ho-Ho-Ho, what a holiday treat – an empty Inbox.

  • No newsletters to ignore
  • No spam to abhor
  • No sales offering More

Empty and fulfilled – just like I like it.

Until the New Year.

When was the last time you fired your Inbox?

====================

Helping you Keep it simple, clear & uniquely yours – contact me for help with your business writing needs.

=====================

BigStock Photo Credit

10 Comments

  1. John Soares

    Good techniques here Cathy.

    I use a variation of Seek and Destroy. The key thing is that I (mostly) stay on top of important e-mails by making sure I answer them in a timely manner and that I have folders to put e-mails I want to keep.

    Reply
    • Cathy

      I use the same method, John, but I have a nasty habit of starting out well in the beginning of the year and then slipping. Then I have to go back to Seek and Destroy. 🙂

      Thanks for sharing your M.O., John.

      Reply
  2. Sharon Hurley Hall

    I love this idea. I do a newsletter and RSS cull every so often and it’s very liberating.

    Reply
    • Cathy

      Isn’t it, Sharon? I love watching my storage bar go down after a dump. 🙂 Ah, the simple things in life.

      Reply
  3. Kim Lemon

    You are so right, Cathy. It’s like clearing your closet of clothes you never wear. Once gone, never missed.

    Reply
    • Cathy

      I like that analogy,Kim. Darn, something else to put on my Year-End To Do list. 😉

      Reply
  4. Roy A. Ackerman, Ph.D., E.A. @Cerebrations.biz

    Given the plethora of mail that sneaks in- it would only be empty for no more than 40 seconds (that’s 2200 emails a day/1440 minutes)— unless it really were my last day and they were closing up the account.

    Reply
    • Cathy

      2200 emails per day – shoot me! 😉

      Reply
  5. Ann Mullen

    I think I suffer from Perfectionism. Since I don’t file anything, I can’t throw out anything. If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all. But you have given me an idea how. Thanks, Cathy.

    Reply
    • Cathy

      I hit a point, Ann, where I throw up my hands and go on a clean-up frenzy – whether it’s my desk or my Inbox. The clutter gets to me after a period of time.

      We each have out own push-buttons. 🙂 Thanks for sharing your view, Ann.

      Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Pin It on Pinterest