Email Decluttering: How I Simplified and Streamlined My Inbox
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Confessions of an Email Hoarder
The Link Between Perfectionism and Procrastination
I have struggled most of my life with perfectionism. Thankfully, the intense demands of grad school has all but cured me of this disease. However, as I am continuing to recover, I have noticed so many areas of my life where it has affected me without my conscious awareness of the added stress and reduced functioning. You see, perfectionism is closely tied to procrastination because it induces thoughts like "I will just wait until I have everything I need to do it right" or "That's a great thought, but I'm sure if I do it now, I'll be too rushed to make it look right", etc. So, in the hopes of one day creating a PERFECT project, the fear of being unable to obtain this goal leads to avoiding the project altogether.
How My Perfectionism (and subsequently my procrastination) Has Affected My Inbox
Over the years, I have gotten into the habit (like I suspect many of you have) of deleting the junk from my inbox, but never filing anything from my inbox to folders. I just know that if it's filed, it will be out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I have also, for whatever reason, accumulated 5 active email addresses! This was especially a problem for me as I have recently been married, changed my name, and am now wanting a new email address which looks professional using my current name. Obviously, this is a mess that can either continue to be ignored and become a source of subliminal stress (as all perfectionists experience), or it could be simplified and streamlined. My perfectionism was screaming to choose the first, as no option would be the "perfect" one, but I decided to forge ahead to investigate how I could de-clutter my inbox and remove my inbox woes. Below I detail the steps I took in hopes of offering other perfectionists/procrastinators a way out of their email clutter!
(picture by cohdra)
I have struggled most of my life with perfectionism. Thankfully, the intense demands of grad school has all but cured me of this disease. However, as I am continuing to recover, I have noticed so many areas of my life where it has affected me without my conscious awareness of the added stress and reduced functioning. You see, perfectionism is closely tied to procrastination because it induces thoughts like "I will just wait until I have everything I need to do it right" or "That's a great thought, but I'm sure if I do it now, I'll be too rushed to make it look right", etc. So, in the hopes of one day creating a PERFECT project, the fear of being unable to obtain this goal leads to avoiding the project altogether.
How My Perfectionism (and subsequently my procrastination) Has Affected My Inbox
Over the years, I have gotten into the habit (like I suspect many of you have) of deleting the junk from my inbox, but never filing anything from my inbox to folders. I just know that if it's filed, it will be out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I have also, for whatever reason, accumulated 5 active email addresses! This was especially a problem for me as I have recently been married, changed my name, and am now wanting a new email address which looks professional using my current name. Obviously, this is a mess that can either continue to be ignored and become a source of subliminal stress (as all perfectionists experience), or it could be simplified and streamlined. My perfectionism was screaming to choose the first, as no option would be the "perfect" one, but I decided to forge ahead to investigate how I could de-clutter my inbox and remove my inbox woes. Below I detail the steps I took in hopes of offering other perfectionists/procrastinators a way out of their email clutter!
(picture by cohdra)
Table of Contents
- Rate Your Inbox
- Step 1: Decide on an Email Destination
- Step 2: De-Clutter before You Make the Move
- Step 3: Moving in the Stuff
- Some Tools to Encourage You Towards Your Goals
- Blogposts about Decluttering Your Life
- Step 4: Update Your Accounts
- Step 5: Make the Move Already and Forward the Mail
- Step 6: Implement the One Touch Rule
- A Gentle Reminder...
- Updates
- Like this Lens?
- Inbox Confessions
- Meet the Lensmastress
Rate Your Inbox
Before you dive in to the whole story behind my email revolution, take a minute to reflect on the current state of your inbox.
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Step 1: Decide on an Email Destination
Just like when you are rearranging furniture, you need to define the space you are organizing. For this project, it meant finding an email address which would be my new home. If you already have an address that works very well for you, congratulations and move on to step 2. For those of you who were like me and had no email address which truly fit my preferences, you'll need to do a bit of soul-searching.
Decide first on the email provider you wish to use. Here is a list of email providers to choose from, although others are available that would possibly fit your needs so if none of these feel right, keep looking! Personally, I had been using Yahoo! as my main provider, but was getting very frustrated and decided to go with Gmail as my main provider.
After you have identified an email provider you are satisfied with, investigate which email addresses they have available. I would suggest aimming for an address which will be useful for years to come regardless of whether you hand it out to a business contact or a person you meet over happy hour at the local pub because once you streamline your email system, you will not want to change again for a long time!
Decide first on the email provider you wish to use. Here is a list of email providers to choose from, although others are available that would possibly fit your needs so if none of these feel right, keep looking! Personally, I had been using Yahoo! as my main provider, but was getting very frustrated and decided to go with Gmail as my main provider.
After you have identified an email provider you are satisfied with, investigate which email addresses they have available. I would suggest aimming for an address which will be useful for years to come regardless of whether you hand it out to a business contact or a person you meet over happy hour at the local pub because once you streamline your email system, you will not want to change again for a long time!
A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.
~John Henry Newman
Step 2: De-Clutter before You Make the Move
Imagine you have lived somewhere for a long time and now you have decided to move into a smaller house. Do the words "yard sale" or "Goodwill" come to mind?! You betcha! That's very similar to what this step represents, only no one wants your unwanted mail, so it's the delete button for you! Sort through your old inbox(es) and delete anything that you know you will not want to reference later. For anything else, create one "miscellaneous" folder to be organized later and send anything in your inbox which you are sure you will want to reference later directly to it. Having only two options ("delete" or "miscellaneous") simplifies this step making it easier to accomplish within a short period of time. As a recovering perfectionist, I know my initial inclination was to create tidy little folders to send items to directly from my inbox. The only problem with that method is that by the time you take to accomplish this, your inbox would have backed up another 20 years! This is only step #2, get it done and do it quickly! You don't want to waste all of your time in your old home when your new home is waiting to be christened! The important part is to delete the excess so everything fits and you know what you have to work with!
Important!
Start wherever you are and start small.
Rita Baily
Rita Baily
Step 3: Moving in the Stuff
Now that you have trimmed the fat from your old email box(es), import your email to your new address. This process varies by email provider, but often you can find it by investigating buttons that say "options" or "settings" or "account". If this yields no directions, google "how to import email to _____ email account". It should turn up a few helpful hits.
Good news! This is a passive step, so once you start the process, your computer gets it done without you. Go do something fun to celebrate your progress!
Good news! This is a passive step, so once you start the process, your computer gets it done without you. Go do something fun to celebrate your progress!
Some Tools to Encourage You Towards Your Goals
Blogposts about Decluttering Your Life
- Tech Spring Clean 103 – Declutter
- By Holan Kerrick Most email programs, such as outlook, will allow you to create rules to help manage your email inbox. For example, when an email notification from Facebook arrives in my inbox, it is immediately moved to a Facebook folder.
- Declutter home before home sale, move
- The idea is to declutter and depersonalize to let potential buyers envision themselves in the house and get attached to it. ? People don't want to let the ownership of a house go. They still want to say, 'It's my house and I'm living it,'? Berry said.
- Teddy's and DeClutter awarded for excellence
- CLEAN VICTORY ? From left: James Conroy, NY Business Development Council, Deborah J. Cabral, The DeClutter Coach, Patricia Badgley and Dr. Patricia Laino, Women's Business Center of NYS, and Bernard J. Paprocki, Small Business Administration celebrate ...
Step 4: Update Your Accounts
Go through the accounts you use most often and update your contact information. Some accounts are easier to update than others. Many sites will send an email to your old address informing you of the update as well as an email to your new address either acknowledging the change has been made or asking you to confirm the change by clicking on a link. So, as you are updating, be sure to check back on both inboxes to confirm and delete as needed.
Note: This process is made much easier if you were using a password manager. I prefer to use Last Pass, and this process went much faster than trying to look back through my history or trying to remember the long list of sites I needed to update.
It's highly unlikely, even with a password manager, that you will update ALL of your accounts in one sitting. So work on all of the ones you use often or you think are important. When you feel like you can't remember any more, you are done with this step and can move on. (I know, your perfectionism is thinking "but I know I'm not done"- it's okay, we will tie up loose ends later!)
Note: This process is made much easier if you were using a password manager. I prefer to use Last Pass, and this process went much faster than trying to look back through my history or trying to remember the long list of sites I needed to update.
It's highly unlikely, even with a password manager, that you will update ALL of your accounts in one sitting. So work on all of the ones you use often or you think are important. When you feel like you can't remember any more, you are done with this step and can move on. (I know, your perfectionism is thinking "but I know I'm not done"- it's okay, we will tie up loose ends later!)
The most difficult part of attaining perfection is finding something to do for an encore.
~Author Unknown
Step 5: Make the Move Already and Forward the Mail
Now that you have imported your important stuff and updated your most important accounts, start considering it as your new "permanent address". Investigate how to have mail forwarded from your previous address as most email providers offer this service free of charge. If yours does not, continue to check your old email until you are fairly confident you have no other accounts that will require updating in the future. Remember, you have already updated all the important ones, so it's likely the remainders are non-essential to your survival.
Now that you are all moved in, try to make the place your own by exploring your options and settings menus. Often you can select a color scheme and, depending on the provider, there may be additional services to explore which come with your email account. Get comfortable in your new email home and you will enjoy it for years to come!
Now that you are all moved in, try to make the place your own by exploring your options and settings menus. Often you can select a color scheme and, depending on the provider, there may be additional services to explore which come with your email account. Get comfortable in your new email home and you will enjoy it for years to come!
Important!
Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.
Conrad Hilton
Conrad Hilton
Step 6: Implement the One Touch Rule
The whole reason the email was so backed up prior to your recent efforts to restore balance to your inbox was because of laziness and procrastination. Instead, you must promise to be proactive in dealing with future emails. In my case, I chose to implement the One Touch Rule. A friend told me about it a few years back and, while I agreed that the idea seemed ingenious, I was not yet ready to put it into practice. Essentially, as each item is received, I have to do something with it. I can delete it, "file" or "label and archive" (depending on the verbage your email provider uses), or I can process into a folder/label which is coded to remind me to take action on it in the future. Using Gmail, this is what I use the star function to indicate. The important point of the matter is that you touch it once and it's taken care of. While some items are not yet able to be absolved due to requiring later action, filing them in their proper place removes them from the inbox. This process can be difficult, but when it is a lifestyle, clutter seems to disappear before your eyes! Note: it also works on real mail and other household items!
A Gentle Reminder...
Updates
It has been about a week since I finished this project and I just wanted to update you on my progress as I was hesitant to believe this process would realy "work" for me, you know? Well, I am proud to say that there is currently NO emails in my inbox awaiting my decision on them. It has piled up at times when life happened and I was away from my computer, but it was so much easier to clean out my inbox at 50 emails than 4000, so as soon as I had the opportunity, I attacked. I have to say, the satisfaction of knowing I have organized and contained this small piece of my life gives me energy to continue the process of overhauling other areas of my life!
Inbox Confessions
Need to get something off your chest about your email regrets? Here's the place...
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vallain Feb 2, 2011 @ 8:03 pm | delete
- I think 90% of the computer literate can use this information. The other 10% are not normal and keep their e-mail inbox cleaned up already.
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