Inbox Zero: How I Keep My Email Under Control (And You Can Too)

Frank Bravo 0:08
Hi, I'm Frank Bravo, and welcome to your Tech Makeover, the podcast that gives you tips and tricks to help you simplify and get more out of the technology in your life. Today we're talking about email. If you're like me, you get hundreds of emails a week, if not a day. And keeping them organized and not overwhelming can be really hard. I have some friends and coworkers who have email boxes that are out of control. Some actually have thousands of unread messages in their inbox. Does that sound like you? Well, because of my job in the various clients I work with, I have about half a dozen email accounts that I check. But even with so many inboxes, people are amazed when I tell them that I usually have less than 20 messages and maybe even less than that in my inbox. This is my Inbox Zero initiative. Well, what works for me is what I'd like to share with you. It's a system of handling messages and managing these messages systematically so that they don't get too overwhelming. I don't remember where I first learned about the concept of Inbox Zero, but I've used it for years and it's really helped me, and I'm hoping that it can help you to. Inbox zero is not magic, and it doesn't require any extra software or any extra things on your computer. All it does is require a little bit of extra effort and discipline. Here's how it works for me. When an email comes into my inbox, I know that I can do for things with it. I can answer it. I can tag it to deal with it later. I can delegate it to someone else or just delete it. Let me walk through each of these one at a time. If an email is something I can deal with right away, I do. If it's something that doesn't require me to look something up, or I know the answer by answering it right away, I get it off my plate and back to the person who had the question in the first place. Sometimes I don't know the answer right then, or I don't have the information I need to respond. In these cases, I'll leave it in my inbox and take it for later. This doesn't mean it sits in there forever, but rather I give myself a time frame to deal with it. You know, maybe it's in the next ten minutes or a few days, but regardless, I'm sure that I will deal with it. Personally, I use the flag ability or the start ability, depending on the email program I'm using to identify these emails in my inbox and keep them top of mind. The next option I have for emails is to delegate it. I use this more with my corporate emails and my personal or consulting ones because honestly, who else would I delegate those emails to? It's a good one to know how to use it. For me, this works by just knowing if I'm the best person to answer the email. Sometimes I'm not. So by passing it along or delegating it. I know that I can get it to the best person to give the right answer. If the answer is available elsewhere. Why not get it from a better source? And finally, I find this option. The best is I just delete it. If I'm not going to need an email again, why would I want to keep it, especially in my inbox? Just delete it. This is where people usually say, you know, that's all good and well, but I may need that email someday. Oh fair enough. Then don't delete it, but at least put it in a folder. Get it out of the inbox and archive it. Anything to get it out of the inbox. In my consulting business account, I have folders for each of my clients. This allows me to keep track of things that I might need for later. Like maybe it's artwork for an upcoming job, or user information for their sites, proposals or invoices or anything I might need to interact with that client. Once in a while I'll go through those folders and delete anything that's old, and I know that I don't need it anymore. If I don't need the folder anymore. I'll delete the entire folder. So there you go. Those are my for easy steps to keeping my inbox pretty empty. It really works for me. But will it work for you? I'd love to hear from you about this or anything else. As always, if you have any topics that you'd like to hear me cover, please feel free to contact me via email at Frank at your Tech makeover.com. That's it for now. Thanks for listening to your tech makeover. Com. If you haven't already, make sure you follow the Facebook page at facebook.com/makeover. That's where I'll break down this episode and others. And you might even find some neat little tricks there too. Before I go, I also want to remind you to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you don't miss an episode. You can check out your tech makeover, where you'll find more information about this episode and links to those podcast platforms. Easy to say. If you want to find out more about me, feel free to visit. Bravo, ITC. Until next time, I'm Frank Bravo, and this has been your technique. Technical.