Detox Your Inbox!

With Labor Day passed and September into full swing, many of us are once again busier than ever! When time is so precious, one of the biggest culprits and thieves seems always to be email.

Do you remember when you first started using email….roughly. Or more to the point, do you remember a time when you didn't use it? Most of us can answer yes to both of those questions. There was no email or internet when we were kids – at least not in the form that we use it today. So is it any wonder that so many of us are on email overload? We have ridiculously long list of emails in our inboxes, and no matter how much time or energy we spend on answering them it never seems to be enough.

But we didn't come into the world using email. Our parents didn't use it. As a matter of fact, most of us got our folks going on this whole internet thing. So is it any wonder that we're struggling with multitudes of messages? Here are a few tips to help you "detox your inbox" and spend less time in front of your computer and more time living your life!

1. Short and Sweet This is truly a case where less is more! Remember that everyone else is in the same email situation. Most of us get more emails than we can possible get through in one day. This inevitably leads to a backlog. Don't ramble on with long paragraphs. Keep it short and to the point – use bullet lists when you can. You'll more than likely find that people aren't offended by your brevity, but thankful for it!

2. Chose and Change Your Title How many times have you gone through your deleted or sent items folder looking for a particular email, only to find it with some obscure title about something that had happened a week earlier? When creating your emails, use a descriptive title – we're all thankful for it! And when responding, if you're changing the content, change the title too! (this is one of my personal pet peeves!) It takes only seconds, but can save precious minutes later, and when we're all dealing with the volume of email that we are, these minutes easily turn into hours.

3. Ask for Action Do you need a response? Is there a deadline? Do you NOT need a response? Including this information in your title line can make things easier and less frustrating for everyone. Here are some examples including the following information after the regular title – NO RESPONSE REQUIRED, PLEASE SUBMIT BY 5 PM, PLEASE RESPOND. I found these especially useful when emailing groups and communication can go a little awry.

4. Pick and Choose As I mentioned earlier, most of us receive more emails than we can possibly read everyday. As I stared one morning with an inbox with 97 waiting messages I did the math on how long it would take me to answer or "deal with" each one. I realized that at 5 minutes per message, (some taking 2 minutes, some taking 20) it would take me a little more than 8 hours to empty my inbox – assuming that no more came in during that time! We simply can't read and respond to everything. That is when I aggressively adopted Rule #5….

5. Delete Delete Delete What do you need to read today? What do you really want to? What could you let go of and not miss? Ask yourself: Is it fun? Is it useful? Is it necessary? Will it change my life? If not, can you let it go?

How we spend our time is how we spend out lives. Do you want to look back at your life years from now and remember how much time you spent emailing? So clear it up, cut it down and aim for Zero Inbox!

Until next time, take good care of you and your life!

From My Heart To Yours, Hunter