With the arrival of this wonderful season, we all get into the spring cleaning mood. Although cleaning your physical space is very important – not only for practical purposes but also for your mental health –, cleaning your digital space is also crucial for your productivity. I don’t know if you feel the same, but I tend to clutter and accumulate way more junk in my devices than in my house. It’s just way easier to lose control of all your files when they are not taking up physical space. Knowing this, I decided to talk about how you can spring clean your inbox in 6 steps – easy peasy!

SPRING CLEAN YOUR INBOX IN 6 STEPS

1. If you’re a rebel… do it the fast way!

You might not know about this tool, but there is an archive in your email that you can use to get rid of emails in any folders without deleting them. It’s probably one of the best inventions of the last century and I use it a lot. So if you’re drowning in emails and the thought of going through them all is too overwhelming, select all of them and hit archive. They’ll be out of your inbox, but they’re still there and you can easily find them with a quick search.

2. Stop seeing your inbox as an incubator

Your inbox should always be empty, as it is exactly that – an inbox. Just like in the GTD method, the items that enter your inbox should only be there temporarily, waiting to be dealt with. When a new email arrives in your inbox, you should either delete it, reply to it, or file it somewhere. This way, you keep a zero inbox and you know that everything is right in its place. We’ll get into filing emails in the next section…

3. Create folders to file and organize emails

I use various folders in my email account to organize incoming emails. If you do this, try to keep it under 10 folders so that you don’t get lost or overwhelmed. However, you should always pick a number you’re comfortable with. Here are the folders I use:

• Personal & Family
• Online Courses (one folder per course)
• Receipts and Invoices
• Payslips

Some people like to send the emails straight to their respective folder without opening them first – you can create a rule for this to be done automatically –, but I don’t like doing that. I feel like if there is an action I need to take based on the email, I will not do it if the email is not in my inbox. So, I never put emails that require action on my part in folders. First, I complete the task, then I file the email away. However, if you trust that you will check your folders and go over the unread emails in there, this could be a good way to keep a zero inbox.

4. Get the party started!!

You can now start going through your inbox and deciding what to do with each email. Read them, scan them for actionable items, and then archive, categorize, or delete them. This can be tedious if you have lots of emails that have accumulated over time, but remember: if you know there isn’t anything of extreme importance in there, you can always go back to step 1 and just archive them all!

5. Your work email might be different

In my work email, I do not keep any folders. This is because most of the emails I receive are only relevant in the moment. Once I get that information or do whatever is asked of me in the email, I archive the email. If I ever need to refer back to it, I can do so with a very simple search.

I also pin and flag a few emails that are really important and I need quick access to. Sometimes it’s because there are useful links in the email, other times there is an important document attached. These specific emails do stay in my inbox, pinned to the top, but they are the exception.

6. Keep it up, girl!

Now that your email is all empty and organized, you have to make sure you can keep it that way. Considering all the tips above, decide how you want to build your system. It should be easy, simple, and intuitive enough that you know you will keep up with it and not let the emails pile up again. You should be as realistic as possible and hold yourself accountable!

And that’s the end of our 6 steps to spring cleaning your inbox! Would you like me to talk about email management tips more often? Let me know in the comments!

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