Let me be your Inbox HERO

TL;DR - Archive everything, use your Search, and Unroll.me for Ads and Subscriptions.

Hey there - For some reason, I have a feeling that you might have some extra free time during COVID-19 Shelter In Place.  

Let me help you free your mind of that crazy overflowing thing called your Email Inbox. I believe that a full Inbox creates a mental burden. Here's how I gained some mental clarity by clearing my Inbox the fast and easy way. 

Whether you like it or not, email is here to stay and will be a valuable tool for marketers and consumers in the years to come.

Unless you are one of a few people that have mastered your Inbox through some auto-filing system and have immaculate Inbox hygiene, then it's a safe bet that you have hundreds, if not thousands of unread email in your Inbox. Right?  

Here's what I did, and what works for me. Don't overthink this; move through it quickly.

1 - Tackle one email account at a time.

2 - Quickly go through your emails for the past 1-4 weeks to address any critical emails. 

• If it takes 1-2 minutes - do it NOW.  
• If it needs Action, Feedback from another party, or Delegation - see Step 7 and add them to the appropriate folder.
• If it's a project, then move it to your task/to-do/project tool. I use a combination of Microsoft To-Do and Trello + Evernote for Archiving.

3 - Sign up for Unroll.me

I don't have any affiliations with this company. I find this service to be an effective solution for rolling up all ads/subscriptions into one email.  

• Yes, they need access to your Inbox. Sorry but that's the price of free.  
• They allow you to 1- Unsubscribe, 2- Add Ads to a daily Roll Up email, 3 - Keep emails going to your Inbox.
• The result - You get one email a day with all the ads and subscriptions that once muddied your Inbox.

4 - Back to your Inbox

• Select ALL of your emails in your Inbox - yup - ALL.
• Archive ALL

5 - Inbox Zero :)

6 - Feel the momentary Zen - ahhhhhh

7 - Create better Inbox habits

• I like to use as few folders as possible. Action, Waiting, Delegated, Archived, Deleted, and Junk.
• As more ads find their way to your Inbox, use Unroll.me to unsubscribe from the email or label as Junk.

8 - For every new email

• If you can address it in 1-2 minutes, then get it done.
• If the email requires future Action, then move it to the Action folder. If necessary, add a due date.
• Waiting folder is for important emails that are waiting for a response.
• Delegated is for emails that you've delegated
• Get in the habit of reviewing these folders weekly
• Every email should either be moved to a folder, Archived, Deleted, or Junk'd. Empty your Deleted and Junk folders as often as you want.

9 - Using Search to dig in the Archive

My strategy is pretty clear and simple. Move everything into Archive and Search for it in the future. You may have just Archived thousands of emails. Most major email services have advanced search functionality. When you need to dig up an old email, using keywords will quickly bring up all matches. Not very scientific, but it works.