6 Ways to Clear Your Inbox

I am feeling very proud of myself. After seven years of Red Kite Services I have finally been through and cleared out my inbox and this is what my inbox looks like today:

Empty Inbox

It took quite a lot of doing, so here are my tips for not only clearing out my inbox, but keeping it empty too.

  1. If you have years’ worth of emails in your in tray (I hate to confess that I had) make an executive decision that if it is over x amount of months old you don’t need it, so you can just bin the lot.
  2. Only look at your emails when you have time to respond. This was such a useful tip from Ros Jones in one of her time saving blogs. Set aside two or three times a day to read through and respond to emails, then file them.
  3. I often kept things in my inbox because some action was needed, but not urgently. So blogs that I wanted to read, memberships to sign up to etc were just left open. I have now set up a “to do file” in my gmail to deal with these non-urgent emails and look through them every day to tick some off.
  4. If you have Google there is a “send and archive” button, which you can switch on by clicking on settings (the cog) and general. This means that if you are sending an acknowledgement reply you can send the response and get the initial email out of your inbox immediately.
  5. Link your email to a CRM system. I use Capsule and it is easy to forward all your emails and your replies into the CRM system by using the CRM address in your bcc.  Couple that with the save and archive function above and you will keep your inbox clear whilst retaining a trail of your emails
  6. All email systems have a filing system, so just start folders up to store your emails – most people do it by client, but you can do it by project or month, whichever works for you. If you are a google user start using Google docs as your filing system to support both your email folders and your CRM. It is super easy to store attachments in Google docs and you can access them from anywhere.

I have now succeeded in keeping my inbox clear for a week and it makes life so much easier. If you need assistance with CRM, filing or organisation of your inbox. contact me now

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