How to Streamline Your Inbox (and Stop Letting Your Emails Pile Up)

The inbox - so important, but so time consuming. But does it have to be that way?

We don't think so.

In fact, we think that you can turn your emails around and instead of feeling like they're working against you, have them working for you.

With these five tricks, you can ransform your inbox from a time-consuming, stressful beast to an effective helper in your working day!

1. Help! My inbox is full of unread messages

Meeting a crowded inbox can be overwhelming and stressful. Not only do you not know where to start, but you risk not seeing an important email or glossing over something that really needs your attention. 

Even if you actually have everything under control, it is easy to get caught up in skimming through the mailbox and not actually paying attention.

Why? Because there is too much competing for your focus.

The solution? It's easy, really. Keep your inbox as empty as possible.

The first step can be to create a folder where you archive emails that have been complete. That way you won't find that email that you need accidentally in the deleted files.

2. Set up folders that'll tell you when to take a look at an email

If you tend to go on annual leave and come back to 600+ new messages, then chances are your inbox is a large part of your day - and clearing through that can be time consuming.

This is where prioritisation comes in.

To further streamline your emails, you can create and work with folders sorted by time. For example: today, this week, next week, one-off, etc.

Each day, you then only work with emails that are in the folder "today" and thus you limit the number of emails that you need to follow up.

This means that you can be sure that you have not missed any important emails. Take ten minutes at the end of each day to rearrange the emails into the correct folders.

3. Scheduled mail times

While it may feel great to be able to solve a problem and answer emails within five minutes, it lowers your overall efficiency.

Being constantly ready to jump on every single thing that lands in your inbox means that you can lose focus on your current task and actually spend longer finishing what you're doing because your attention slipped.

Instead, try to keep to certain times for checking your emails. Be sure to also set aside time to sort and clear your emails in accordance with your new structure.

4. Work offline

To further help you keep your scheduled email times, you can use a feature that simply “turns off” your emails. Most email systems allow you to pause the inflow and outflow of emails and you are thus allowed to work undisturbed - offline, if you will. This way you avoid the constant flow of notices and you can keep full focus outside of your set email times.

5. Unsubscribe

It sounds easy but the reality is it requires a little administration on our part, so it tends to get overlooked as a geniunely helpful tool to improve focus.

It can be easy to get caught up in just deleting all the different offers and updates from different sites that you once showed some interest in. Take the time to click on the unsubscribe link once and for all. This reduces the number of stressful notices and you get fewer emails in your inbox that you have to browse through and sort.

You can also take advantage of some mailboxes' automatic filtering system. For example, in Gmail and Outlook you can set your newsletter / retail discounts to go into your 'everything else' folder, so it doesn't distract you while you're working.