Inbox Zero..... Inbox empty..... You in control of your inbox ...... Have you seen this lately?
Not me.... my inbox is in charge of me, not me in charge of my inbox - that is not good. See, I'm good at knowing *what* to do... but doing it is another thing.
I'm listening to Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" talk again while I'm working on it.
Do you remember email back in the late 90's ? (Some of you remember it before then:) I remember checking the email box every couple of days - and sometimes getting a message in there. Now, I check it all day, and it floods.
Part of what you have to remember to get control of your inbox is to process each and every time you check your email.
Take care of each email as you read it - does it need to be moved to a file? replied to? deleted? It does not need to sit in your inbox.
Merlin has five verbs that he uses for his system in the order of his desirability to act on each email
- DELETE (or Archive)
- DELEGATE
- RESPOND
- DEFER
- DO
Learn to use your email application to its potential! I think all of them have filters.... if Aunt Mary always sends you jokes, set up a filter to auto delete emails from Aunt Mary with fwd: in the subject!
If you are starting with an inbox like mine (3100), you might consider deleting the entire thing. I am planning to move all of those into a folder "Old Emails" today, so I can start clean. Then as I have some extra minutes - clean out the "Old Emails" folder.
And as I stepped over to ActiveRain to share with you procrasinate tackling my inbox, I wish you well in your endeavors to keep control of yours! Feel free to share your best tips below....
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