Don’t be buried alive by a backlog of email. Take emergency action to rescue your inbox, and you, from message overload. Start digging your way out of email “hell” with these ideas:
- First, block out one hour of time to focus on the backlog.
- Move your entire inbox into a folder called “backlog.”
- Quickly delete what you can such as social media alerts, newsletters, and old conversation threads.
- Answer any email that takes 2 minutes or less. For emails that take more than 2 minutes, move them to a separate folder called “action.”
- Schedule 30 to 60-minute blocks over the next several days to work through your “action” folder until it’s completely empty.
The key is to prevent future backlogs. Clean out your inbox at the end of each day and use the Rules function to block non-essential mail from showing up in the first place.
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