I simply have to have my e-mail inbox empty. Everyone thinks differently of course. But if you’re like me, it’s easy to get distracted. And when you get distracted it makes you less effective at work. You never know if this little tip might help you get promoted at work and then make finding an even better job that much easier.
When my e-mail inbox is full of old communications, it wastes my time. I’ll spend just a fraction of a second thinking about how to respond to each e-mail. And if I leave it in the inbox forever, I keep wasting that fraction of a second over and over again. Believe me, it adds up.
How To Keep Your E-Mail Inbox Empty
I use folders of course, and that helps. However, there are some e-mails (I tell myself) I need to take action on but for some reason, I never do. Recently I discovered a cute little technique that solves this problem.
I simply take care of my e-mails from bottom to top. In other words, I won’t respond to new e-mails until the messages at the bottom are deleted, filed or responded to. For me, this has made a huge difference. My inbox is (almost) empty all the time. (I have used this technique, but I don’t do it perfectly. I hope that by declaring this method to the world, I’ll be more accountable to myself.)
The old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind” is true. In this case, I need to clear as much shelf space in my head as possible, and keeping that inbox empty helps.
What do you do to keep your brain clutter free?
George says
July 15, 2011 at 8:39 PMMy emails have to be hitting about 30,000 by now… starting at the bottom could be tricky. Great tip though, I will have to see how I can do that.