Does opening your inbox make you cringe? Anxiety fills your chest whenever you think about opening your email. How long does it take to draft a reply to a negative email? Your inbox should not have that much control over your emotions. Here are three tips to eliminate email stress and transform your inbox from something you dread.

Take back control of your inbox.

How would you feel if you could regain control of your inbox and stop feeling stressed every time you opened it?

As an online business owner, do you let your inbox dictate your day, or is it only a tool you use?

I’m guessing you know what I think is the right answer. Your inbox is only a tool that you use in your online business. This is important because it is not your “to-do list.”

Use the most straightforward approach to create your unique best practice to keep your inbox in check.

The keys to going from an inbox that is cringing worthy to one that feels organized and manageable.

I’ve cleaned up a lot of inboxes for the online business owners that I support. So often, they are so scared to delete anything from their inboxes. Some have never deleted a single message. You may think that looking at an unread message count of tens of thousands of messages is not a big deal, but it is.

This leads to email stress.

You see, opening up an inbox full of emails you don’t need will cause you stress. Whether you choose to believe it or not. Why is letting go of junk and outdated email such a struggle?

I’m curious what are your thoughts about having an inbox full of emails? Does that big number lead you to feel important or needed? Do you feel popular?

Drill down into you why you continue to have so many messages in your inbox.

I promise it’s not because of time. I’ve cleaned out inboxes that are over tens of thousands of emails in a couple of days or less. That’s with breaks and includes ensuring I wasn’t deleting anything worthy of a save.

As with everything in life, it comes back to our mindset and thoughts.

It’s time to take back control of your inbox once and for all.

Tip Two to take back control of your inbox, set up rules:

In the inbox, rules can be established to sort your emails automatically, so you don't have to. Setting up rules in Gmail and Spark, the email app I use on my phone and computer is so easy.

Don’t worry, Outlook user; I double-checked, and rules are also possible in Microsoft Outlook.

Filtering your emails can be done by using from, to, and specific words.

I’m going to give you my example of Austin, and this is what I mean by that. I don't know what happened,but some how my email address has gotten added to an email list for Austin that is looking for colleges.

I get multiple emails a day sent to Austin asking him to look at this university, this college or check out this campus or whatever.

It all has to do with Austin and with college.

Therefore, those are words that I look for in my filtering. So that I can get them out of my inbox and I don't have to deal with them because it's a pet peeve of mine that I have these in my email.

Although I tried unsubscribing in the beginning, it took too long because there were too many emails in my inbox.

Now I just have a rule that deletes Austin's email automatically.

What can you do with filters?

Do you want a message from your boss starred and marked important?

Do you want to send a templated email back if a message has specific words or goes to a certain inbox?

Filter all those marketing messages directly into your Read At Leisure folder. No more sorting or distracting you. Mark them as read for even less distraction.

Tip Three to eliminate email stress, use a timer:

Use a timer when going through your inbox.

Make sure you tell your brain that it will be easy to get through sorting your messages in that amount of time.

Since this is new to you, I suggest one 25-minute sprint or Pomodoro when sorting through your emails.

When you’re sorting, you’re not responding.
Instead, you’re making decisions as to when you will do the work.

Remember your email is Other People’s Agendas (I heard this from Ashlyn at Ashlyn Writes).

Begin to ask people to provide you with timeframes. Do this same curiosity to others.

Spell it out in the subject line exactly. Response Needed By [Date].

What is the goal when you’re sorting your messages?

It’s all about the 4 D’s: Do, Delegate, Defer, Delete.

Do –
How long will it take you? Are you able to respond back in a minute or less? If that is the case, do it right now and get it out of your email.
If it takes longer, answer the next question; when will it get done?

Decide when you will Do the task and put it on your calendar.

A quick reply to the sender to let them know it’s been received and you’ll have it to them by the end of the day on [insert the date].

Here’s an example:

Greetings!

Thank you for your email message. It’s been received, I have this on my to-do list and you’ll have it by the end of the day on Monday, November 7th. If you need this done sooner, please let me know.

Delegate –
Who else can do this for me? Are you able to delegate it in a minute or less? Do that now; if not decide when you’ll gather all the information to delegate it.

Defer –
The messages that are informational emails. These emails can be achieved for later review.

They will fall into the defer bucket and should be handled on the spot by either achieving or moving into your read-at-leisure folder.

Delete –
Listen to me just delete the junk!

I promise you do not need it in your life or your inbox. If they are marketing messages that are no longer valuable, drop them in the unsubscribe folder.

If you’re like me and not much of a tv watcher, sometimes it's nice to have a mindless activity while sitting on the sofa. Unsubscribing to emails is just that activity.

If you prefer a tool like Unroll.me to roll up those marketing emails and unsubscribe easily.

Top 3 Tips to eliminate email stress & take back control of your inbox

1. Set Up Folders and Labels
2. Establish automatic sorting rules
3. Use a timer when sorting messages

Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate you and hope you have a wonderful week!

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Oh, my goodness. In this blog post, I'm sharing with you a secret: people will always judge you. I'm so happy to have you here. This is because when I first started my online business, I really, really struggled to put myself out there in fear of judgment until this one thing happened.

I know you're just curious about that one thing.

When I attended a church meeting, I experienced something that made me overcome my fear of judgment and put myself out there for my online business. As a result, I realized it didn't matter. People will always judge; just do what needs to be done already.

Feeling judged by others.

I’m curious, are you at all wondering what happened at church that left me feeling judged by others? A church should be a judgment-free zone, right?

Nope, not that night.

While I was sitting in the meeting, everyone was looking at the speaker. The former speaker in me just happened to scan the room. As I surveyed the faces, I ensured everyone was catching what the speaker was saying.

As I scanned the room, I turned my head to catch the person sitting next to me. There was a solid expression of disapproval on this person's face as they looked at me up and down.

Honestly, I don't know exactly what was going on in their minds, but I do know at that moment that I was being judged for something.

Just a guess. The fact that I am wearing leggings, tennis shoes, and a sweatshirt to this church meeting may cause some disapproval. Compared to everyone else, this was a bit more casual.

Get past the fear of being judged.

What truly matters is how you actually judge yourself.

What are the standards that you set for yourself?

I'm curious, friend. Have you ever been in a similar situation where you can pretty much tell that somebody is judging you?

I'd love to hear your story. Tell me all about it in the comments below.

I appreciate you; thanks for supporting me and stopping by my blog.

I hope you have a wonderful week, and I'll see you back here next week.