Break free from the black hole of your inbox! My three-step email workflow to divide and conquer one message at a time.
Does your work require you to be glued to your email inbox? Does it feel like a never-ending black hole of work? Do you end your days overwhelmed and anxious that you’ve missed something important? Do you breathe a sigh of frustration every time you get that “friendly” follow-up email from someone because you didn’t get to their email in time, which only makes things worse because now you have yet another email to wade through?
I feel you. I’ve been there. And I’ve come out on the other side.
After a good deal of experimentation and tweaking, I finally landed on an email workflow that actually works. I broke free from the inbox, and I was able to end my days knowing that even if I didn’t get to everything that day, nothing was missed. Everything truly urgent or important was handled, and the rest would still be there tomorrow to take care of.
Want to know my secret? Just put this three-step process on repeat at set intervals throughout your day. You may even find that you can take a break from emails from time to time and finally work on that other project you’ve been putting off!
Each time you go through the process, you’ll start by skimming and categorizing all of the unread messages in your inbox. Then you’ll work them in the order below.
1. Quick
Quick emails are those that you can answer in just a few minutes or less.
Don’t move or skip these. Do them now! Yep, right now. Get it over with and out of your inbox. Then move on.
2. Urgent
Urgent emails are exactly what you think they are. These are emails that will take you more than a few minutes to answer, but they need to be done as soon as possible. This could be a message related to a deadline, or perhaps from a VIP client.
As you skim, move these out of the inbox to a separate “Urgent” folder. When you’re done skimming, you’ll move out of your inbox and directly to this folder. Work all of these emails next no matter how much time it takes. When you’re done you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that all of the important messages are handled.
3. Oldest
Anything else that isn’t quick or urgent will remain in your inbox to be handled as you are able to get to it. You’ll get to these only after your quick and urgent messages are handled.
But here’s the real secret – we aren’t going to work these directly from the inbox either. Staying in the inbox longer than you need to is a very dangerous place. It’s a dark and distracting road that will ultimately lead you into an abyss of never-ending work.
So instead, we’re going to divide and conquer. Pull a chunk of your oldest emails over to a separate “Oldest” folder. You can really name this whatever you’d like, we just want them out of the inbox!
Maybe you’ll want to start by pulling all of the emails leftover from yesterday or…two weeks ago? No judgement here! Just meet yourself where you are and move forward. But, be reasonable. Don’t pull more than you think you can handle within one to two hours. Remember that this is a process. You’ll get to everything sooner or later.
Now you’ll move over to that folder and work through all of those emails until they are done. Only then will you move back to the inbox and repeat the process!
Bonus tips!
Whenever you complete an email, archive it so that it’s out of your inbox or any other “working” folders. You’ll only want to keep emails in your inbox that still require some sort of action.
Turn off notifications except for emails marked urgent or important! Those pop-ups are a huge distraction that can pull you back into the inbox abyss. As long as you are following this workflow you’ll see all those emails soon enough and won’t need those notifications anyway.
And that’s it guys. That’s the secret. Trust the process and stay out of the inbox.
By pulling your urgent and oldest emails out of the inbox you can truly focus and get through what’s important without getting distracted by every new message that comes through. As long as you keep this on repeat you’ll get back to the inbox soon enough and can keep on top of things.
You’ll never miss an important message, and the rest will be handled in time.
