Action Steps For A Clean Inbox

Does your cluttered inbox cause you to feel scattered and chaotic? Not to mention out of control and a total time suck. If you feel this way, these are action steps for a clean inbox that will have you feeling calm and in control.

In reality, either you control your email or it controls you. Here are the action steps I use when clearing and organizing an inbox. Once completed you’ll take control of email organization and keeping your inbox in check. 

I’ve gotten a look or two when I ask clients does your inbox control you or do you control your inbox? While most want to say they are in control, the facial expression will tell the truth. 

An inbox that is chaotic will cause a waste of time and energy. 

Your inbox should be treated as a tool in your online business, it should not be where you spend the bulk of your time. Here are the action steps for a clean inbox, therefore giving you the steps you need to finally take control of your inbox.

Labels and Filters make for a clean inbox

Setting up labels and filters is the first step to an organized inbox. In the past, I've created a number of labels, but I've scaled that back a bit. 98% of the time if you go looking for an email, likely you’ll search for a keyword or person before you go and look for it. If that’s not the case, how are you finding those emails? Searching is quick and easy. 

Here are the best labels or folders that I’ve found to use;

• 0-Immediate
• 1-Action
• 2-Active
• 3-Hold
• Finance
• Finance/Payable
• Finance/Receivable
• Review
• Unsubscribe

Any specific folders that are needed in your business. Such as client or product folder. 

Let's talk about these labels or folders and the purpose they serve. 

If you notice I have a number in front of a few of the labels. You may also use a character, such as an exclamation point or dash. It’s really your preference, you can change these later if need be. 

0-Immediate 

Immediate is the emails that must have immediate action, as in less than 24 business hours to complete or respond. 

1-Action

Action is the emails that require action by you but doesn’t require immediate action.

2-Active

Active is to store the emails for active projects that are getting a number of emails. Generally speaking, I would suggest creating a filter to put them directly into the active folder. The filter can be on an email address or subject. As a result, you know where to go when looking for an active project. 

3-Hold

Hold is for emails for meetings, travel, reservations, activities. Usually, anything you need to hold for a later time. Hence they are tied to a specific date or an agenda that will no longer be needed after the event has taken place. 

Finance

Finance is used to hold the emails that need to have an action done with them. Such as added into your accounting software or anything that may take longer than a couple of minutes to complete. Once the action has taken place, the email can be moved to either the payable or receivable sublabel/folder pending what it is. 

Review

Review is for emails that do not have a timeframe as to when they need to be reviewed. This is where I put the marketing emails that I like to skim and archive. 

Ashlyn from Ashlyn Writes calls her folder Read At Leisure which I think is a cute name. 

Unsubscribe

Unsubscribe, is for all those emails that you signed up for but no longer read. This folder can either be manually added to or a filter can be created. 

Although, I’ve done it both ways, personally, I prefer to manually add these when I’m sorting through my emails. Since some of the marketing emails will be added to my review folder to be skimmed later and possibly archived. 

Inbox Applications

You have options, options and more options when it comes to inbox applications. I can’t even remember all the inbox applications I’ve tried out. At the present time, I regularly use Spark and Kiwi as they both have a certain set of features that I like to use. Do not be scared to try different applications, you need to figure out what works for you. You have so, so many possibilities! 

Why I like Spark

I like Spark because it has an app for my iPhone, while Kiwi is for my desktop. I can pin emails, save canned responses, schedule emails, and have emails come back into my inbox. 

Not to mention, they also have a paid option for teams to chat back and forth on emails. One other feature is Quick Reply this option allows you to set up canned responses that can be sent with a click of the mouse. 

For example, this can be used to send a quick email to let your client know that you’ve received the email and will take a look at the request. It is handy dandy. 

Why Kiwi

Kiwi brings your Gmail to your desktop and if you have multiple Gmail accounts they receive tabs to jump back and forth with. 

Kiwi, together with Boomerang you’re able to have a number of the same features as Spark. Including, setting up emails to be sent at a later time or to snooze an email to review later. 

Get out of your inbox

As an online business owner, it’s important that you get out of your inbox. After all, your work should not be driven by the emails that you receive.

Instead, it’s best to block time to work on your email. Schedule when you’ll check and sort your emails. 

As an entrepreneur, it’s important that you plan and schedule inbox time. Otherwise, you’ll find that you’re using it as a procrastination tool instead of revenue-generating activities.

To begin with sort your inbox when it’s first opened. Everything gets filed in the correct label or folder so that it is completed in the correct time block. 

It is possible to get a clean inbox, it just takes a bit of time to clear out the clutter. Once you have the system in place email is so much more.