How to Delete Clutter from Your Email Inbox
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Ethan Waldman from the Cloud Coach blog
There is a false perception about clutter that I’d like to clear up: the idea that clutter can only be physical objects. I believe that we are living in the age of digital clutter, and it is my mission to help you avoid it.
Here’s the problem
It is easy to address the physical clutter in our lives, because it’s everywhere. It takes up space in our closets, shelves and bedrooms. It shows up on our credit card bills in the form of new purchases, late fees and subscriptions.
Physical clutter in our lives is pervasive and prevents us from being happy, getting our work done, and living a more fulfilling life. Sites like Be More with Less are serving an important purpose: to combat the culture of clutter we live in.
But I believe that there’s another form of clutter, one that is less visible but just as pervasive: Digital Clutter.
It’s Harder to Recognize Digital Clutter
The problem with digital clutter is that it’s much easier to brush aside. Because storage space is so cheap and so freely available, we can just buy another $79 external hard drive and continue to store more crap on it.
Cloud computing was all the rage this year, and the ability to store your documents, photos and music online is a huge convenience. Yet it is also another opportunity to stash away digital clutter where we won’t see it all the time.
Any clutter expert will tell you that even though clutter isn’t staring you in the face it can take an emotional toll on you. You may still feel guilt associated with the stack of self-help books in your closet even though you haven’t looked at them in 3 years.
I think the same is true for digital clutter. Just replace that closet, basement or attic with external hard drives and cloud storage—Clutter is clutter.
Where is Digital Clutter at its worst?
There are many areas where digital clutter can be an issue, but the one I’d like to focus on specifically is email. Email clutter is worse than other forms of digital clutter for a number of reasons:
1. Most people use email every day
2. Email is the communications center for our businesses, social lives, and relationships
3. Though we may interact more socially on twitter and facebook, we get the most “action items” via email, so messages are much more likely to pile up.
In keeping with the theme of Be More With Less, I’d like to offer some techniques on how you can reduce email clutter so you can live with less digital clutter. Think of this as the precursor to performing an email clutter bust.
Unsubscribe
Go through your inbox and look for newsletters, promotional emails, shopping notifications, etc. Open each message and ask yourself if this email is really serving you—can you get this information another way?
If so, consider unsubscribing. Unsubscribe from as many lists as you can. Another way to cut down is to turn off email notifications from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Why do you need to get an email every time you get a new follower? By reducing these automated messages, you can reduce the amount of noise in your email. That way, what actually ends up in your inbox is actually important.
I go into this process in more detail in the free Email Ninja Kit resource, including suggested search terms and how to quickly unsubscribe.
Send Less Email
One way to cut down on the amount of email you receive is to reduce the amount of email you send. For me, this means never hitting reply-all. Replying all to an email is a sure guarantee that you’ll receive an exponential number of emails in return—emails that you’ll have to sort through to find action items or important pieces of information.
Before sending an email, I ask myself if this could be better served with a quick phone call or text message. In a way, sending an email just puts off a conversation that you could be having right now.
When you have no option but to send an email, keep it short and to the point. You’ll probably get something short and to the point in return. If you write a novel, don’t expect a concise answer.
Organize
One piece of advice that I give all of my clients is that organization doesn’t start once there is a mess. When you start a new project or correspondence that’s going to generate a lot of email, set up a folder or label for that project right away—don’t wait until you have 5 or 10 messages floating around before you create a home for them.
If you have Gmail, you can even automate this whole organization process so you no longer have to manually file emails in their appropriate folders (more on this in the Email Ninja Kit).
You Can Decide to Get Un-buried
Being constantly buried in email is a choice—not an affliction. By recognizing that your current methods and actions are contributing to the digital clutter in your life and adopting new techniques, you can move towards a life with less digital clutter.
How is digital clutter from email affecting your productivity? Your business? Your life? Let us know in the comments.
Ethan Waldman helps people live and work in harmony with technology at the Cloud Coach blog. Right now, many people are using his free Email Ninja Kit to liberate themselves from email hell.
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19 Responses to “How to Delete Clutter from Your Email Inbox”
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I keep the clutter down with my home email by using GMail. I activated the Bulk/Forums/Notifications option which automatically separates out less important email. After I read an email it is deleted or archived. The only emails that stay in the inbox are those that require a future response.
At work I use Outlook and I simply delete emails after I have responded. Email with assignments that I still have to complete stay in the inbox. I have created only one folder that is called “keep.” After 15 years it has 23 items in it. Even “keep” items are checked for deletion periodically.
Most work emails, at least for me, I simply do not need to hang on to. At home I can use GMail to search the archives.
Rick- Wow! 23 items after 15 years. When I have to use Outlook, I create an “Archive” folder like Gmail and just put everything into it and then use the Outlook search feature to find what I need. It’s not as fast or slick as Gmail, but works when needed. Thanks for sharing your strategy!
Never thought of applying the Gmail approach to Outlook. Good idea. I am essentially doing the same thing but deleting a large of amount of emails whereas I could have just used the search and stored more of the marginally useful emails.
They really improved the search in Outlook 2007 and later. If you’re using 2007 or newer, go for it!
I also save time and avoid clutter in my email by only having two folders: my inbox, and a “processed email” folder. Why bother having a tone of folders when there’s a search box?
I agree, Joanna. With Gmail, there really is no reason to go overboard with organization.
Ethan, Great article. I can relate, especially after getting new digital gifts that I have to acclimate/merge files/music/books, etc!
I have unsubscribed from most of my mailing lists, and read most blogs on my rss reader. And, I recently switched to gmail. I love the archive/search feature, and especially the ability to merge all my email accounts in one place.
Marci- Thanks for bringing up google reader. I think that’s another tool that can help us browse the internet and read our favorite content much more efficiently. And when you switch from an email subscription to an RSS subscription, it really cuts down on what makes it to the email inbox.
Thanks for the helpful tips, Ethan. Digital clutter is a big challenge for me. As good as I am getting at minimizing my physical possessions and clutter, I find that I’m still a digital pack-rat. You’ve motivated me to carve out some time this week and un-bury myself!
Contratulations Josh! It’s definitely an ongoing project (to stay digital clutter-free). I’m glad you’re feeling inspired.
Great tips. Perhaps I need only one New Year Resolution: De-Clutter!
I use Outlook 2007 and have all of my 7 email addresses (personal, job and business) deliver their emails to my one Inbox. I handle everything in chronological order and, like Rick, use my Inbox as my to-do list. The only things that stay there are things that I haven’t completed yet. When I’m done with an email, I either delete it or permanently delete it if I know I’ll never need it again. I turned off the feature that permanently deletes everything in my Deleted folder upon close so, if I need to look up an old email, I always know it’s in my Deleted folder somewhere. Outlook’s search feature has never let me down.
I also text very sparingly to a handful of people who I know respond to texts much more quickly than emails (if I need a quick response). For all my texting needs (I don’t have a smart phone) I use http://www.ipipi.com where I can send and receive texts through my email.
And I nixed my landline phone for a Skype To Go number where I pay $60/year for full featured phone service through my computer. I bought a Skype phone too that works like a regular phone. This way I get voice mails delivered to my inbox as well.
With all this in place, I only have to go to one place for all my messages. Makes my life a whole lot easier and it’s much less expensive.
Wow- 7 email addresses! It sounds like you’re using your deleted items folder essentially the way gmail has an archive folder. I wonder if the mental weight of putting something in the deleted items folder vs the archive helps you take action right away, versus just filing it for later.
Thanks for sharing your system!
There’s nothing like upgrading to a new computer to eliminate some digital clutter. There are too many programs that make it easy, however, to transfer everything. I refused and spent several days deciding what I needed and what I didn’t. One of the “cool” things I noticed after my transition was I now have less than a dozen desktop icons. Before my screen was almost full.
I do agree with the spirit of the comments here. Technology does give us an opportunity to manage clutter… but it’s important to realize that managing it better doesn’t mean it’s not clutter.
One thing I like about Outlook (had it in 2007, it’s even better in 2010) is that you can create “rules” that will flag/categorize incoming email. That together with a goal that email in certain folders will not go above a certain number forces me to handle things with some degree of logic.
I have also found that search routines do mean spending less time “organizing.” One important aspect of this is reminding myself how easy it is to find stuff on the Internet! I had at least 50 bookmarks/favorites in Internet Explorer… now maybe a dozen and I’ve yet to miss the others!
Just signed up yesterday for the Clutterfat Challenge and noted that virtual / digital clutter is where I personally want to focus with this challenge. As an organizer by profession, I’m very much aware of how clutter (physical, digital AND mental) affects so many of us – me included!