Declutter your inbox!

266 words. 4 minutes to read.

How many times have you signed up for a newsletter or email list thinking, That’s going to be so interesting!, only to never read it?

If you’re like me, you have a world of good intentions. I sign up for diet newsletters, health blogs, minimalism lists – and never read any of them.

Then I find them cluttering up my inbox, preventing me from reading the truly important emails that I really need to read.

Solutions to the clutter

Spend an hour tonight. While watching your favourite show on television, usubscribe from anything you haven’t read in the last month. Don’t worry – it’ll still be there should you wish to resubscribe at a later date.

Get a good spam filter. If your email provider doesn’t already provide a good spam filter, consider changing to a provider who does. I use gmail, and the spam filter is great.

Quit the guilt. You’re not a failure if you don’t read everything you want to read. Likewise, you’re not a nasty person if you unsubscribe from that lovely person’s blog feed – including this one! If it’s interfering with real life, it needs to go.

Real life comes first. Allocate a regular time each day for dealing with your inbox. Start at the top, work down, and only deal with each piece of information once. If you aren’t intending to reply, don’t leave it for tomorrow. In my experience, tomorrow never happens.

Start with mail from people you know in real life, plus bills and financial content. Everything else is a distant second place. This simple two-tier rule makes everything simple.

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