Holy Shit! What have I done??
I, like many people, am in a constant battle with my inbox. I try my best to keep up with the incoming messages, from friends, bloggers, businesses, and stores, but lately I have been feeling like the amount of love letters to my inbox has been getting out of control.
The thing with me is that when I’m passionate about something, I tend to saturate myself in it. Like entrepreneur resources, manifesting and abundance pearls, mindset hacks and advice for the gurus, I want it all! I subscribe to ALL THE THINGS! So many things in fact, that I have begun to dread opening my emails. Everytime I look at my phone and see the notification number creep higher, I get that sudden feeling of anxiety rolling over me.
And then it really hit me…
As I sat there, staring at my inbox which was flooded with an endless scroll of unread emails, more coming in every 10 seconds, all I could think to myself was “Holy Shit! What have I done?”
I was 500+ emails deep! I was sinking babes, sinking fast!
And it occured to me that something’s gotta change.
So let’s get real about Email Overload, and how to erase it.
- Declutter – First, I had to unsubscribe from email lists that were not serving me for where I am at right now. I started with all those emails from retail stores. All of the stores that I haven’t shopped with in the last 6 months – gone. All of the stores that I’ve only bought one item with and wasn’t even impressed with it – gone. All the stores that I only shop with once in a while and their emails don’t excite me – gone. Then repeat this step with other categories of emails you receive.
- Organize – A big problem of mine is that I tend to treat my inbox like a to-do list, all this does is create a messy inbox, and a to-do list that never gets checked off. So to combat this I created folders to help organize the mail that I wanted to keep.
For example:
- A folder for my online course info (like log-in info, ect.) because I’m a huge course junkie
- A folder for high-value content that I want to keep as a reference (usually from bloggers and teachers)
- And a personal folder for important personal emails that I want to hang on to and not get lost in the shuffle
- Time – Set a realistic schedule for things like reading emails. This is where I had to get a little cut-throat. The emails that had been sitting in my inbox, over a month old, still unopened, went straight to the recycle bin. #sorrynotsorry. I had to be honest with myself- If I hadn’t opened it by now, I’m not going to, and 95% of the offers/sales/ect. in those emails had expired.
Please, if you are experiencing email overload like I was remember the three key steps to an inbox revival above:
- Declutter – Meaning delete outdated email, unsubscribe to emails that just aren’t your vibe anymore.
- Organize – create folders to store emails with value that you want to keep, and remove the rest.
- Time – set aside some time every few days to catch-up on emails that you haven’t yet. And if you find that there are certain emails that you repeatedly do not open, then that’s a sign to let go of that subscription.
Alright y’all let me know if you have any inbox hacks and I’ll see you again next time!
Peace, Love & Air Hugs,
J.