navigation bar


Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Tuesday Tidy


I have really missed blogging and when I take such long breaks it can be hard to know where to start. So I decided on a simple new series: Tuesday Tidy.

I'm slowly unburying myself from my email inboxes. Between multiple email accounts I had over 300 "unread" emails. I put that in quotes because some of them I marked as unread so I'd remember to deal with them later. But the truth is, I just don't have the bandwidth to deal with these emails...

So this morning I set a 10 minute timer. I figure I can commit 10 minutes and then move along if needed. So for 10 minutes I moved emails to the correct inbox folders, deleted those I didn't need, and unsubscribed from unnecessary emails (I always end up back on these lists!). When the timer went off I'd dealt with 27 emails!

After a 5 minute break I was motivated to try again. With the first inbox at zero, I decided to tackle the monster account with 257 unread emails (insert embarrassed face...). After another 10 minute session and I'm down to 181!

Here are my quick tips so I don't dwell on tricky emails and get lost in the process:


  • Sort by subscriptions or companies first so you can deal with them at once. Start with an easy one that you know you can delete without much emotional attachment.
  • When in doubt, unsubscribe. Clearly I haven't been using the coupons and when I need a coupon, I will know where to look
  • Make a list: recipe emails are so inspiring but they clog up my inbox, so I open the link to the recipe and save it in a document called "Recipes to Make," that way I can search later and delete the email now.
  • Create folders for certain categories. I have purchased many knitting patterns over the years and they often come in emails so I have a folder where I move these emails so they are filed away. Makes it easy to access later and doesn't clog up the "IN" box.
Looking forward to more tidying and less emails this week! Have other tips and tricks for organizing email? I'd love to know!

2 comments:

Juliann in WA said...

When in doubt - unsubscribe
Good advice!

Amy said...

I've been using Unroll.me for a couple of months now, and it's pretty great. It rolls any subscriptions you choose into a daily digest email. That way, if you want to stay subscribed to certain newsletters and such, you can get a single email that lets you see previews of all the emails you received, and then if you want to read more, you click the image to see the full email. I definitely recommend it!