Lily Snyder

I get it. This one’s a doozy. I started with over 1,000 emails in my inbox. There were old purchase confirmations, newsletters, email subscriptions I never read, and blog notifications to name a few.

Productivity experts say to ignore email. However, think of the benefits of an empty inbox. It’s a clean slate and what’s more productive than being able to start fresh?

Today’s Assignment: Clean out your entire inbox

There are a couple ways you can go about clearing out your inbox. I suggest doing this challenge on a computer but you could do it on your phone or tablet.

Set the timer and delete

The key to this method is not to get distracted by reading or responding to emails. Only focus on deleting emails. Try to focus on generic emails. Leave personal or client emails for another time.

I set my timer for 5 minutes. I cleared about 80 emails. I still have 940 to go. Yikes!

1. Set the timer on your phone or computer for 3-5 minutes.
2. Go through your inbox and delete any emails you no longer need. Use [shift]+[click] to select multiple emails in a row to delete.

Set the timer and unsubscribe

This method is similar to deleting emails. Focus your time only on subscriptions you no longer read: company newsletters, blog newsletters, product sales.

1. Set the timer on your phone or computer for 3-5 minutes.
2. Go through your inbox and unsubscribe from emails you no longer need. Use [shift]+[click] to select multiple emails in a row to unsubscribe.

Create rules

Creating rules is not only a great way to set up clutter-free inbox in the future, but it’s also a good way to purge multiple emails.

1. Set the timer on your phone or computer for 3-5 minutes.
2. Create client or project specific folders, folders for newsletters you want to read (but don’t always have time for) or other type of emails you like to recieve.
3. Create rules to move emails from those senders to their matching folders. Create rules to sweep emails you no longer want to recieve or no longer need to “junk” or “trash” folders.

That’s it! Take a few minutes each today towards a clutter-free, hardly any email inbox.