Digital Nomads

In today’s fast-paced digital world, email has become an essential tool for communication. However, with the constant stream of emails coming in, it can be challenging to keep your inbox clean and organised. An overflowing inbox can cause stress, and anxiety, and even lead to missing important emails. Not to mention wasting a lot of time trying to sort them out or searching for what you are looking for. Let’s look at some simple ways you can declutter your digital life and keep your inbox clean and organised.

Unsubscribe from unnecessary emails

You order a pizza online and suddenly you are subscribed to their emails. You join a clothing rewards club and you start getting an email every week. The amount of promotional emails we get is crazy. I know I find that I just end up deleting them 2 months after receiving them (usually when the voucher or reward has expired). So start unsubscribing from the ones you don’t read. You’ll be amazed at how many there are once you make a conscious effort to work out whether you actually want to receive them.

Delete emails

If you have read an email and it doesn’t need to be kept, delete it! Straight away! The more you have sitting in your inbox, the harder it is to manage. If you don’t need it, get rid of it.

Sort emails

Use folders or labels to sort the emails you do need to keep. Some of the folders I have for example include: Mum, Nana, Tax, Travel, and Toastmasters. The emails that I may need to refer to later are filed away into these folders so that I can access them when I need to but aren’t filling up my inbox.

Schedule time to check your email

Checking your email constantly throughout the day can be distracting and counterproductive. Instead, schedule specific times during the day to check and respond to emails. This will help you stay focused on other tasks and avoid getting overwhelmed by the constant influx of emails. At work, close your emails down when you are doing something else. Multitasking is not productive and I know if I have my emails open, one will come in and I’ll think “I’ll just answer that one” and then 30 minutes have gone by and I have forgotten what I was meant to be doing.

Keep your inbox at a minimum

Keep the emails in your inbox at an absolute minimum. Respond, delete, or archive emails as soon as you receive them. This may sound daunting, but it can help you stay on top of your emails and prevent them from piling up.

Your homework this week is to schedule some time to start cleaning and organising your emails. By doing this, you’ll be able to find what you are looking for quickly, are less likely to miss important emails and you’ll spend less wasted time looking at promotions that you will never use anyway.

Check out our other Digital Declutter Series:

Digital Declutter Part 1: Emails

Digital Declutter Part 2: Cleanup Your Device