3 Keys Thursday: 3 Keys to Tackling my Infinite Inbox

Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

It's here! It's here! The end of the semester is here!

It's all over but the grading, and most of that is nearly complete as well.

I took a chunk of time this afternoon just to be lazy, and it was wonderful. But, with only three weeks until summer classes start, there are some things I need to dig into. Book promotion, neglected household tasks and yesterday's topic, my infinite inbox, top the list.

As I was settling in to write this post, I remembered that I wrote about my email conundrum three years ago (I even used the same graphic!), so I went back to those posts for some ideas. Although I've adopted some good habits (delete the junk daily, if possible), I have been unable to stem the tide.

So it's time to go back in.

I've decided that my approach has to be similar to what I'd do if my inbox were an actual pile of mail instead of a virtual one. So, here are my three keys for slimming down my inbox.

Get rid of the junk mail. When I bring the mail in from the mailbox in front of our house each day, the first thing I do is sort it so that the junk doesn't linger. That way, even if I don't get to the rest of the mail right away, the pile I have to tackle is smaller and more relevant. With email, I can even go one step further and unsubscribe from the worst offenders.

Turn the pile over. When the mail (or any other pile of papers) accumulates, it's often easiest to sort from the bottom because that's where the outdated items are, which makes culling the pile simpler. With email, I need to scroll to the bottom and start there. In addition, I can search by source and set a cut-off date for all those newsletters that contain information that is no longer news.

Find a home for the stuff I need/want to keep. I have built filing systems for bills and real-world mail that work with my I need to see it personal style but figuring out what to do with the oldies-but-no-longer-goodies that survive the inbox purge is substantially more challenging. Because email is somewhat invisible, especially to someone with an I need to see it personal style, making it even less visible can be a bit anxiety-producing. I don't have a ready response for this except to clean up the folders I have and baby step my way into a few more so that I can find easy-to-use homes that work for me instead of stressing me out. And then I need to use them.

I've already taken the first steps by improving my daily email habits. Most days, I successfully delete my junk mail from my inbox (though keeping up with it is sometimes a challenge). I've removed the email program from my iPad, eliminating one place where I used to check mail (multiple checkpoints further complicated the problem) and, when I got my new laptop, I installed only my main account. For better or for worse, this means there's a lot less junk in the inbox.

joakant via Pixabay

Thursday night is one of my favorite television nights so tonight, I will take my first baby steps. I'll delete junk, start at the bottom and set target numbers, deciding how many emails I want to delete in this first pass. Doing this during the commercials will enable me to work at this overwhelming task in small chunks of time.

So, I'm going in. Wish me luck. And, if you have any helpful hints, I'd be most grateful if you shared them in the comments below.