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.

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.

✁ 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