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Digital Declutter Of Your Inbox

Digital Declutter Of Your Inbox

by | Planning-Organization-Productivity

Is your inbox overflowing with unread emails, read emails that you have not done anything with yet, and the effect is causing you to miss important emails or opportunities? If this is you, it’s time for a digital declutter of your inbox.

Overflowing and Overwhelming

Do you feel your heart start to pitter-patter anything you even think about having to log into your inbox? It shouldn’t feel like that. Do you dream of someday reaching inbox zero?

Do you feel the current state of your inbox is overflowing and overwhelming? Let’s discuss small steps you can take every day to clear your inbox.

Gmail

While this will be specific to Gmail, you can apply these principles to most email applications.

First Steps In A Digital Declutter of your inbox

Friend, let’s tackle your inbox. We are going to filter your inbox to view unread messages, beginning with older than 30 days.

Do this by typing is:unread before:2021/3/15 into the search mail at the top of Gmail. is:Unread will filter all the unread messages, before:date will filter your date.

An example → is:unread before:2021/3/15

A few things I’d like you to keep in mind,

If it hasn’t been significant enough in 30 days to read it, will it ever be?

I get it; a month flies by, but after 30 days, if you haven’t found the time to respond, how important is it?

Do they even need your response any longer, or did they figure it out or ask someone else?

If you would feel better, glance through the first 25-50 message and see if you absolutely feel called to respond to any of the messages?

For the email that you definitely need to respond to, start it out with, “Thank you for your patience. I’m a little embarrassed it’s taken me so long to respond to you.” Enough said, move on to your response.

Digital Declutter of Your Inbox

How to handle all of those unread messages

We can handle this in a couple of different ways.

If you think that you will ever plan a day to go through all those unread emails, then create a label aka folder named To Sort.

Did you just LOL and think, I’d like to say I’m the person that will sort through those emails someday, but I know me, and I’ll never make the time. I give you permission; just delete them, let them go.

Are you think nope not going to delete them and pretty sure I’ll never take the time to review them. For the love, do not leave them in your inbox. Create a label aka folder named Delete on 10/14/21 or whatever the date is six months from now. If those emails are still unread six months from now, just let them go. Delete the whole folder, gone.

If you do go to that folder for an email, move it out and file it appropriately.

Read older than 30 Days

Jump to the read messages older than 30 days—the same process.

An example → is:read before:2021/3/15

What do you want to do with them? Move them in the To Sort folder? Delete after six months folder? Or just delete them all? Follow the same process as above. If you read it and just left it in your inbox, why? What was the reason?

Now to 30 Days

You’ve dealt with all the unread and read emails older than 30 Days.

How do we want to handle the remaining emails? We are now going to create our workflow process.

I’m a big fan of David Allen’s GTD model for email processing. David recommends if the email can be completed in less than two minutes, do it now. Here is a link to David’s Getting Email Under Control Process. 

The two-minute rule is simple, if it takes more than two minutes, create the next action on your task list, where you put things that need to get done. Do not leave it in your inbox. Do not leave it in your brain. It needs to either be on a paper or electronic task list.

My workflow is to create a task in my master actions inside of Notion. File the email in my ✔️Action Items Folder. If it requires immediate action by the end of the day, it is sorted into the 💠Win The Day Folder.

Marketing Emails

Marketing emails, oh how I love to sign up for marketing emails to check out the sales funnel. Therefore, I sign up for a ton, and I unsubscribe to a ton. But, I’m not going to do that during my valuable work time. Nope, I put them in a Read At Leisure folder.

When I have a few minutes here and there, I’ll start to go through that folder. Yep, I’m that person with my face in my phone while waiting in line. No shame, I consider every minute valuable.

If it sparks a creative idea, it will go into my folder name Marketing Inspo. If it does nothing, deleted it, and if it doesn’t feel aligned, I’ll unsubscribe.

Are you over marketing emails altogether? Sign up for unroll.me. Unroll.me will filter all those marketing emails before they even hit your inbox, and you can unsubscribe in bulk.

Calendar/Travel

Anything that I will need until a specific date goes into my ⏰Waiting Room folder. Yes, with the emoji and all.

The folder contains information I’ll need for meetings, travel arrangements, online orders, any type of information that I need to hold on to until a specific date, and then delete it.

Waiting For

Are you waiting for someone else? It goes into this folder; you know you need to follow up. Or you can use Boomerang for Gmail for this too. Boomerang for Gmail is an add-on to Gmail.

With Boomerang For Gmail, you can schedule emails to come back into your email at a specific date if you haven’t received a response. It’s pretty slick. Check it out here.

 

Create Your Inbox Workflow

My inbox workflow has been fine-tuned as I’ve gained knowledge and experience clearing out inboxes with tens of thousands of emails. This is how I keep my inbox clutter-free.

  • By creating a workflow for handling your inbox, you are no longer constantly looking at the same emails repeatedly, trying to decide what needs to happen next.
  • Actively work inside my inbox twice per day, midmorning and end of day wrap up.
  • Spend up to 25 minutes or one Pomodoro sorting my inbox; if I’m done sooner, it’s bonus time.
  • Handle in under two minutes. Do it now!
  • Action required to put it on the action list filed in action or win the day
  • Email that I have to do with events, date-specific it goes into the waiting room and added to my calendar if it’s not already
  • Emails that I need something from someone – waiting for, or you can use Boomerang for Gmail
  • The marketing emails they get sorted immediately into the read at leisure – unread are deleted no questions asked if they are over 30 days old

This workflow helps to get through your inbox quickly.

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Little Side Note

 If you’re the CEO of your business, should you be the one clearing out your inbox? This is a great first step to outsourcing. 

✁ Just a Snippet 

Here is just a snippet of the essential points you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪

  • Repeat the small steps daily to clear your inbox.  
  • Clear out unread – If it hasn’t been significant enough in 30 days to read it, will it ever be?
  • Clear out read – if you’ve read it, why is it still sitting in your inbox? 
  • I recommend reading this: David’s Getting Email Under Control Process.
  • If it requires immediate action by the end of the day, it is sorted into the 💠Win The Day Folder.
  • Marketing Emails – delete or Read At Leisure folder.
  • Emails with specific dates go into my ⏰Waiting Room folder.
  • Create a workflow for handling your inbox
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Digital Declutter of Google Drive

Digital Declutter of Google Drive

by | Planning-Organization-Productivity

Let’s jump into decluttering Google Drive. I'm going to walk you through some of the tasks that I do when I’m working on a digital declutter. This is something that I like to do yearly, as with everything the more often you do this the easier it is.

Review Your Digital Files

Let’s take a look through the folders that you currently have on your Google Drive. Are the folder in your Google Drive actually folders that you use and you know what is in them?

Do they need to be renamed or reorganized to align with your growing business?

Setting Up Folders for Teams

Setting up folders for your teams can be done in a couple of ways for ease of sharing digital files.

Google Workspace

Does your business have Google Workspace formerly G Suite? Great, then all the folders for the team should be inside your shared team drive.

It is my recommendation that you add team members to the main root folder and allow them access to everything in those folders.

When you share individual folders and files it takes far too long to remove team members should they no longer be a part of the team.

This can be done by one folder name team, with all the folders under that. If you feel a little uneasy like you’re giving the keys to the kingdom, you may set up department folders such as Marketing/Sales, Finance, Operations, and grant access that way.

Personal Google Drive

Setting up a team on Google Drive that comes when you create a Gmail email account.

My recommendation is for two folders. A folder for your business files name Business or the business name and a folder name Team to be shared with all team members

Digital Declutter of Google Drive

Why One Team Folder

By only have one main folder for the team it is easy to onboard and offboard team members.

It all you to go into one share spot in your team folder, and add or remove shared access to the folder and all the content verse having to figure out what they were given access to.

Friend, that is an extremely time-consuming process. Trust me, it is. One folder, it's quick and easy one spot, one-stop.

Simple and Speedy

A super speedy way to give access is by creating one generic sign-in for the team such as team@yourbusiness.com. One drawback to this is if you look at change history you may not know who it was that made the changes. Then when a team member joins part of the onboarding process is getting them set up with the team account. For team members, the off-boarding process is changing the password for the team login.

How To Organize Your Shared Files

Having an organized filing system is key to eliminating stress and overwhelm when searching for files. Think of it this way if you would just randomly throw papers in a file cabinet draw without folders and labels it would be a cluttered disorganized mess. The same principle applies to your Google Drive.

Folder Names

These are the exact folder names that I have in my Google Drive

  1. Team
  2. Clients
  3. Sales/Marketing
  4. Operations
  5. Knowledge
  6. Content Bank
  7. Templates
  8. Michele Duwe Personal

Every single folder I have has an archive subfolder. I can either have one archive folder or you can have several archive folders. It is totally up to you. Me personally, I like to have it in one container. That is my personal preference. It is simple to move files around in Google Drive. However, it works best in your mind.

Megan Minns has a fantastic YouTube video on her shared file organization if you would like to check it out. She also offers a free file organization cheatsheet for download. This is an excellent system and what I use when organizing my clients’ Google Drive.

Link to Megan Minns File Organization Video

File Naming Conventions

How's your naming convention? Do you struggle with keeping a consistent naming convention? Or do you have random names for files and folders?

Here is an example of how I name a client file: MT Client-first name last name-What It Is-Optional Year

Or a file that's inside my finance folder, if it is a receipt I name it: Who/What-yyyy-mm here is two examples:

  • G Suite-2021-01
  • Amazon-Office Supply-2021-01

Be consistent with naming conventions and have standard practice when you're saving files. Nothing's worse than having to open 25 documents because you can't find the one you're looking for. Because you didn't name them right, that really sucks.

First Place

One of the things that I tried to remember to do, and it does shift if I'm looking for a file, where's the first place I’d look for it?

That's where I want to save it. At times, I’ve moved files around.

Because when I first started, that was the first place I looked.

But now as I've grown, and I've expanded, that's not the first place I look. In that case, I simply move those files around.

Are you able to find files that need to be moved around to a better location? This is a step to not save for declutter time, this is an everyday thing.

How To Declutter Your Digital Files

Looking for a quick way to declutter your digital files? The easiest way I’ve found to do a digital declutter of files is to sort by Last opened by me and reverse sort order. This puts the files that you haven’t opened recently on top. Now quickly run through the files you haven’t open in more than 6 months. Do you need to keep them all? Can some be put in the archive folder?

Keep in mind that once you delete them they will be permanently deleted, so if you remotely think you may want it in the future, put it in your archive folder.

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Little Side Note

Do you use Chrome as your internet browser? If so, this is a great time to declutter all those Chrome Extensions that you added and do not actually use. If you tried it once and didn’t think it was awesome that’s not likely going to change. Remove it.

✁ Just a Snippet

Here is just a snippet of the important points, you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪

  • A digital declutter is something that I like to do yearly, as with everything the more often you do this the easier it is.
  • By only have one main folder for the team it is easy to onboard and offboard team members.
  • Digital file organization is just as important as those physical files in the drawer. It takes a long time to search through paper, if you’ve not done a digital declutter before this will take time so plan for it.
  • Be consistent with naming conventions and have standard practice when you're saving files to speed up the digital declutter process.
  • Tired of searching for files? Once you find it move it to the first place you just looked for it and didn’t find it.
  • The easiest way I’ve found to do a digital declutter of files is to sort by Last opened by me and reverse sort order.
Tapping into success (EFT)

Tapping into success (EFT)

by | Online Business

Tapping into your success, and I mean this literally. When I say tapping, I’m referring to the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

This is a tool that I added to my bag of tricks when I began the online business journey. The mantra for EFT is “Try it on everything”.

If you’re asking what is EFT, read this

Okay, this could be a little woo for you depending on your woo level, but give it a try. I too was skeptical of anything that seemed woo when I transferred into entrepreneurship. However, this is backed by science, and as a girl that questions everything, I like data and research.

The Emotional Freedom Technique is based on a more complex technique called Thought Field Therapy (TFT) created by Roger Callahan. After taking Callahan’s course, EFT founder Gary Craig realize he could greatly simplify the procedure, and EFT was born. Gary Craig’s entire EFT manual is available as a free download from emofree.com.

Intro to EFT

Within the first year of my business, I was introduced to EFT by one of my very first clients. She splits her time living between the midwest in the United States and Australia depending on the seasons. What a smart lady never dealing with winter weather.

We would have daily tapping sessions together, we would take turns leading on what limiting belief was popping up for us. We’d spend a few minutes discussing what was coming up for each of us and we’d tap together. Generally, we were both pretty in sync with our limiting beliefs around starting our businesses.

 

Tapping into success (EFT)

What exactly is EFT?

It is a therapy technique loosely based on the techniques of acupuncture and acupressure. It uses the same basic energy meridians in the body to eliminate physical, emotional, and mental issues.

Huh?

You tap on key points on your body to move around energy.

I know, right.

By tapping on these key points on our body you give yourself the opportunity to balance the flow.

Tapping into success

Of course, I use this in my life and business and have done so with success. Friend, I’m here to help you short track your success, not take the roundabout way as I did.

What are you struggling with?

It’s important to get down to the true emotion that you’re struggling with, do you need to get to the cause and not the effect.

What is causing you to feel like (you fill in the blank).

Not sure? Pull out that journal and list out all the possibilities. For me, I can tie most back to my emotions around not knowing enough and rejection.

Do you feel an emotional charge?

What do you need to tap on, the memories or emotions that bring up an emotional charge for you? Do you know where you feel this specifically in your body?

Tapping is really personal, we all have our own baggage and views of the world.

This is where the journalling comes in pretty handy.

You want to find those things that bring on the emotional string. Dig into the root of the emotions and tap on those.

Try It With

Use EFT on your headaches, emotional blockages, and limiting emotions. As the mantra goes “Try it on everything”

Besides my limiting beliefs, I use tapping for sleep. Let me say, sleep can be a struggle for me. Most nights, it takes forever for me to fall asleep, I wake up very easily and frequently in the night.

When I use EFT consistency I receive the best results. Sleep is the biggest place that I’ve used tapping.

Can you think of an area that you can try this with?

I feel like I need to give the disclaimer, I am not a licensed health care provider and this is not medical advice. If you have health issues, please seek help from a doctor.

Success Is In Consistency

With anything in life and business success comes with consistency. It makes everything flow easier and it creates the habit.

If you struggle with creating consistency, do a little habit stacking. In the book, Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about creating habits and using a current habit to trigger a new habit.

Habit stack your new tapping tool with a current habit that triggers you. James mentions in his book, this method was created by BJ Fogg as part of his Tiny Habits program.

That’s how I’ve created my evening routine. If you’ve been around me at all, I’m guessing you may have heard me say Good Morning start the night before. I know my family sure has.

Anyway, in the evenings I make sure I have everything ready to go for the morning.

  • Lemon water prepped with lemon, juicer, coffee cups, cutting board, and knife next to the tea kettle.
  • Coffee pot ready to go
  • Dog food in the dishes
  • Airpods and iPad ready
  • Brush Teeth
  • After I am done brushing my teeth, I will tap for a good night’s sleep and to fall asleep quickly and easily. This is right before I crawl into bed.

It’s my habit stacking because I already did all the other things

Read the steps below on how to tap or watch this YouTube Video.

How exactly do you tap?

The basic structure is:

  • The Setup
  • The Sequence
  • The Suggestions

To Begin, rate your problem from zero to ten. On a scale of zero to ten with zero being not at all, how would you rate your feeling/emotion/Issue/Pain? In general, think of 10 as the worst feeling/emotion/issue/pain you’ve ever experienced. That’s how I personally gauge it.

The goal is to tap down a few points lower with each round.

Okay, now that you have what you’re going to tap on and you’ve given it a rating, let's move to The Setup.

The Setup

Do not skip The Setup, it is vital to the whole process and prepares the energy systems.

On the pinky side of your hand, between the bottom of the pinky finger and the bottom of the hand. Basically the side of your palm.

This is called the karate chop point. Have you ever seen a demonstration of karate-chopping a piece of wood? It’s the same place you’ll be tapping.

We are going to tap on the side of the hand while repeating the below affirmation three times:

“Even though I have this (feeling/emotion/issue/pain), I deeply and completely love and accept myself.”

The Sequence

The other points for tapping are:

  • Eyebrow (at the inside end of your eyebrow)
  • Side of the Eye (just at the side of your eye on the eye bone)
  • Under the Eye (in the middle just under the eye)
  • Under the Nose (tap in the middle between your nose and lip)
  • Chin (tap in the middle of your chin on your dimple if you have one)
  • Collar Bone (tap on the inside of your collar bone)
  • Under Arm (under your arm, for ladies at your bra strap area)
  • Top of Head (the top of your head just in front of the crown)

Tap each point seven to ten times by repeating the feeling/emotion/issue/pain and by bringing in all the other points that are similar that you journaled about.

Go through a round or two and check back where you are on the scale.

One key to this working is you have to focus on what you’re tapping about, not your to-do list when you’re done tapping.

The goal is to get to zero before you move on to the suggestions part of the tapping.

The Suggestions

The suggestions are my favorite. This is the part where you tap on the positive suggestions.

Run through all the tapping points again.

  • Eyebrow (at the inside end of your eyebrow)
  • Side of the Eye (just at the side of your eye on the eye bone)
  • Under the Eye (in the middle just under the eye)
  • Under the Nose (tap in the middle between your nose and lip)
  • Chin (tap in the middle of your chin on your dimple if you have one)
  • Collar Bone (tap on the inside of your collar bone)
  • Under Arm (under your arm, for ladies at your bra strap area)
  • Top of Head (the top of your head just in front of the crown)

Tap each point seven to ten times by giving positive suggestions and by bringing in all the positive things you’d like that you journaled on.

l

Little Side Note

Here is a video from Yes Supply. The current coaching certification I'm attending. Happy Tapping!

EFT Tapping for Money Manifestation:

✁ Just a Snippet
Here is just a snippet of the important points, you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪

  • Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
  • This is a tool that I added to my bag of tricks when I began the online business journey.
  • The mantra for EFT is “Try it on everything”.
  • The Emotional Freedom Technique is based on a more complex technique called Thought Field Therapy
  • Within the first year of my business, I was introduced to EFT by one of my very first clients.
  • You tap on key points on your body to move around energy.
  • Friend, I’m here to help you short track your success, not take the roundabout way as I did.
  • What is causing you to feel like (you fill in the blank). Not sure journal on it.
  • Tapping is really personal, we all have our own baggage and views of the world.
  • Besides my limiting beliefs, I use tapping for sleep.
  • With anything in life and business success comes with consistency.
  • If you struggle with creating consistency, do a little habit stacking.