We’ve all seen the Oprah specials on people who are considered “Horders.” Horders are people who can hardly exist in their space anymore because it is so full of stuff. They send in specialists who clear out the clutter and give people guidelines for prioritizing their lives. Being in a technical field and this being a technical blog, we come into contact with those that can only be referred to as Email Horders. The truth of the matter is that some people have upwards of 10,000 saved emails. If you thought it was time consuming to read them the first time, imagine reading them 3 or 4 times. The average email takes 3 minutes to read and process. For 10,000 emails taking 3 minutes each, that equals out to be 500 hours spent simply reading emails the first time, let alone the second, third and fourth.
For many, email is their business’ main platform, their bread and butter if you will, but the sad reality is not all mail servers come equipped to handle such an overload of email. Here are some quick tips for clearing out email and prioritizing your inbox.
1.) Cut the Spam- If you find 14 spam messages in your inbox a day make sure you are marking them as Junk. The more you mark them as Junk the more you are training your inbox to recognize them as Junk. When they are automatically put into Junk folders with your filtering system it is easy to take a glance and hit Empty. There is no need to waste your time on pesky adds.
2.) Unsubscribe- Purchasing items online or signing up for email from your favorite store sounds great in theory but stop and be honest with yourself. If you have never been prompted to go and buy something or really needed information sent in the newsletter, unsubscribe. Most email newsletters make it simple, a quick reply with the subject line reading “unsubscribe” is all you need, others add a link to their email where you simply click on the “unsubscribe” option. The 2 minutes it will take you to do this will save you over 30 minutes a year in reading the newsletter every month.
3.) Read-it-and-Delete-it- For those newsletters or promotions you really do read and are interested in every month, read it and delete it. It sounds simple enough but going back through inboxes people will have Christmas promotional adds in their inbox until July. The promotion is over and it’s time to delete the email. This goes for beloved forwarded messages also. Forwarded messages take up a lot of time. If you like forwards and want to read them, then do so, but rarely is there a reason they need to live on forever in your saved emails.
4.) Keep it Business- A lot of people have only one email account they use for both personal and business email. Separate your personal life from the business life. You will have less clutter when you’re at work and less work stress when you’re at home. This also helps to maintain an appropriate work environment.
5.) Record and Delete- If the email contains a who, what, when, or where you can record elsewhere, you should. If an email contains the name and number of a new contact, save the name and number to your address book and delete the email. If it is an invitation for an event or appointment, schedule it in your calendar and delete the email. Programs such as calendars and address books are usually connected to stronger backup systems and are a much easier way to find pertinent information than digging through and reading every email.
6.) Save the Final Email- Most email systems record the dialogue of an on-going conversation. There is no need to save every email sent, and received in that dialogue just save the last one that contains every reply, it will cut the clutter and give you a clearer picture of the context of the email.
7.) File Efficiently- By using very specific filenames you will make it easier to find the email you are looking for and also avoid overlapping. There is no need to save each email in multiple folders. Choose a name that is relative, and recognizable.
8.) Move Attachments- Many people save emails because they contain important attachments. If the attachments are that important don’t leave them attached to an email. Move the attachments into a Folder on your computer or your shared drive appropriately titled. If there are pictures of a rental property, create a Folder entitled “Rental Property” save the pictures in the Folder and delete the email.
9.) Cut the One Liners- People responding with a simple answer such as, Yes, No, Thank You, I don’t know, OK, are rarely ones that need to be saved. It is usually the recipients way of informing you that they received your email. If you have not received an “Undeliverable” message, it is safe to assume the email has been received and there is no need to record the one-liner response.
10.) Made the Cut- For those emails that have now made the cut and are determined must-haves use an auto-archive feature to help slim down the size of emails that are over 3 months old. Better safe than sorry for emails that make the cut, be sure they are being backed up sufficiently and if the email load is overwhelming your back-up system it’s time to look into a larger back-up system. Don’t gamble with what you can’t afford to lose, be sure emails critical to your company don’t get lost in the shuffle.