I use Gmail and Outlook for my email and reading and replying to emails constitutes a major part of my day. I get a fair amount of emails each hour, and I’m pretty quick at responding.
However, one thing you’ll notice about my Gmail inbox is that it is just about always empty.
It gives me a relaxed and peaceful zen feeling to have a clean inbox: a feeling of peace, calm, and satisfaction. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to reduce their stress levels around responding to email. Keep in mind: I wasn’t always like this. In the past, I had many emails in my inbox stressing me out every time I looked at them. They would sit in there, sometimes unread, sometimes just waiting for me to take action, sometimes waiting to be filed, and sometimes, waiting because I was procrastinating. I also had many folders for filing my emails, so that I could find them when I needed them. It would take me a while to file sometimes, so I would always put it off until another day.
For nearly a year now, I’ve been fairly consistent about having a clean inbox.
Here are my simple steps to achieving Email Zen:
1) Don’t check email first thing in the morning, or have it constantly notifying you. This is a tip I recommend often. Checking email first thing will get you stuck in email for several hours at times. Instead, start your day with the most urgent or important thing for the day (or the thing you’ve been procrastinating about the most). Then check your email. Better yet, do 2 or 3 things first. Also, if you are constantly checking email throughout the day, or if your inbox notifies you as soon as an email comes in, you will be constantly distracted and not able to focus on the task in front of you. I set a reminder to check once per hour, but you may have different needs.
2) When you check your email, dispose of each one, one at a time, right away. Make a decision on what needs to be done with each email at that moment. Don’t put it off until later.
2a) Is it junk or some forwarded email? Trash it immediately.
2b) Is it a long email that you just need to read for information? File it in a Read folder (or tag it Read and archive) or print it to read on the road (while waiting in line at the coffee shop, for example).
2c) If the email requires action, make a note of the action on your to-do or Google To-Do lists to do later. Also, note to check the email for info if necessary. Then archive the email. You can easily find it later when you need to do that task.
2d) If you can respond to it in a minute or two, do so immediately. Don’t put it off. If you wait, you’ll end up with a backlog of emails to respond to and you may never get around to responding to them. I respond quickly with a short note and send it right away. That way I’m viewed as responsive and on top of things by my business partners.
2e) If you need to follow up on the email later, or are waiting for a response, note it on a Waiting For list. Don’t just leave it in your inbox as a reminder.
3) I have only 3 folders: Archive, Action, and Waiting For. When I respond to an email or finish reading it if it doesn’t need a response or note on my to-do list, I archive it. Simple as that. I have an Action folder or a Waiting For folder. I don’t like to check extra folders. I have my to-do lists and my Waiting For list, and that’s good enough. So it’s as simple as pressing “Archive” on an email or placing it in the Action or Waiting For folder, Gmail’s search is so good that it’s easy to find. I’ve never had any problems with this system. On Outlook, I have found this same strategy works and that finding email is easy using the search.
Email Zen is that easy: check email at regular intervals throughout the day, take action on each email right away (or note it on a list to do later), and archive.
Ahhh. Zen……an Empty inbox!