Thursday, January 24, 2019

Spring Cleaning for your Inbox




Tidying up and de-cluttering is HOT right now. Everyone wants to do a little pre-spring cleaning for the New Year. But, what if it isn’t your house that’s got you feeling overwhelmed by clutter? Virtual clutter (Facebook messages, out-of-control emails, pop-up notifications) can be just as overwhelming.

Are you drowning in emails? Do you have heart palpitations every time you try to confront your out of control inbox? If you’re like many of us, and you have dozens or even hundreds of new emails every day, these simple tips might help you make your inbox more manageable.


  1. Unsubscribe. I don’t do a lot of online ordering, but somehow I ended up on a ton of mailing lists. Most of the online stores who emailed me with special deals and sales offer the same ‘deal’ to everyone. There was no benefit to staying on their list, and if I want to shop with them again, chances are, I’ll still be able to cash in on a special promotion or deal. Unsubscribing from these various online stores was quick and easy, AND it had an immediate (positive!!!) affect on the number of emails in my inbox each day.
  2. Opt Out! If you’re like me, you follow a lot of blogs and newsletters. I signed up to receive immediate emails from several of the blogs I enjoy, which meant I received dozens of emails every day! I decided to opt out from receiving daily emails, and instead receive a daily or weekly digest. I still visit my beloved blogs, but usually on the weekends when I have time to do so. Now, instead of receiving a constant stream of notifications, I am enjoying a much cleaner inbox. And I’m still enjoying my favorite blogs.
  3. Create folders and labels. Sometimes you don’t want to delete an email, but you’re not quite sure what to do with it. Yahoo allows you to create folders. Gmail allows you to create labels or to archive emails to save for later. Once I read an email, I either delete, sort, or save it. The only emails that stay in my inbox are those that still need to be addressed in some way – they require a response or some sort of action on my part. Everything else gets shifted out of my inbox.
  4. Get serious about spam. Most of the spam I receive goes into my spam folder automatically, but not all. In the past, I simply deleted spam emails. It was quicker that reporting it and moving the message to the spam folder manually. But once I made the decision to tackle my inbox, I knew I had to be aggressive in eliminating these unwanted emails. I reported every single piece of spam and that has made a huge difference! I rarely see spam in my regular inbox anymore.
  5. Change your notifications. I used to receive an email every single time someone followed me on Twitter or liked my post on WordPress. Every. Single. Time. Facebook sends you emails too, depending on your settings. If you’re getting tons of emails from WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, there are ways to make it stop. Each social media site allows you to customize the way you receive notifications. You’ll have to go to each site and puzzle out how to make these changes, but it’s worth it. A little time spent now will save you tons of time (and clutter) later.
Happy Decluttering! 

To read more articles by Tricia Drammeh, please visit her blog! Be sure to visit the Post Gallery to read more articles by Our Author Gang


COMMENTS

Erika M Szabo

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Great tips Tricia, thanks for posting this! It's worth the time spent on decluttering on the long run
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Erika M Szabo via Google+

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Today Tricia Drammeh gives us great advice on how to declutter our emails at #OurAuthorGang
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Tricia Drammeh shared this via Google+

6 days ago  -  Shared publicly
 
 
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Chris Weigand

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Thanks for the helpful tips.
 
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You're welcome!

Ruth de Jauregui via Google+

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Tricia Drammeh​ shares tips on keeping your email under control on #OurAuthorGang.
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Ruth de Jauregui

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Great post Trish. I'm not so good with my personal emails, but work? I rarely have more than three emails (that need to stay in my inbox) showing. Everything else is archived, sorted or deleted.
 
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Same. My work email is super organized. My personal email...not so much. I've gone through the spring cleaning process a few different times, but when I first decided to really tackle it, my email was so out of control I was getting hundreds of emails per day! It was so overwhelming.

Joe Bonadonna

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Great advice, Tricia. I clean out my Spam almost every day and delete emails and other notifications as soon as I read them - unless I need to save - and then clean out my Trash almost nightly. I unsubscribe all the time, too. So much we think we need we eventually find out that we don't.
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Joe Bonadonna via Google+

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Today on #OurAuthorGang, Tricia Drammeh​ offers some helpful suggestions for "uncluttering" your virtual life, such as your email inbox, spam and website notifications.
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Chris Weigand shared this via Google+

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
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Toi Thomas

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
I usually declutter once a year, but I forgot last year and now I'm overwhelmed. Thanks for the reminder to get this done.
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You're welcome! I do this periodically, but lately it has gotten bad again, so i decided to go through spring cleaning once again.

Cindy Smith

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Great advice!  I have done most of that already except the reporting all the spam, every time  I did that I ended up with twice as much.  LOL 
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Oh no! Those spammers are tricky. You have to read the unsubscribe instructions carefully because they always find a way to put an option in there that sounds like you're unsubscribing, but you're really not. I've been burned by those too.

Toi Thomas via Google+

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Today, Tricia Drammeh offers tips for de-cluttering your email. #OurAuthorGang
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Cindy Smith shared this via Google+

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Eva Pasco

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Helpful reminders for decluttering!
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Rick Haynes

1 week ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Receiving emails every day from Pinterest was annoying. But thanks to you, Tricia, I have changed my settings. Great article.

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