How to Manage Email as a Busy, Working Mom
I kind of can't believe this myself, but two weeks ago I got to inbox zero for both my business and my personal email addresses. And I've managed to maintain it!!!
My mind is blown 🤯!
I mean, it lasted for all of 10 minutes before new emails started rolling in, but I have to admit it felt, and still feels really good.
For years I've been curious about whether having a well-managed inbox would make a difference or not.
My inbox wasn't necessarily out of control, but it's always been full. I've just learned to zero in on the important communications and tune out the rest.
(Amazingly, I haven't dropped too many balls or missed too many important communications, though I'll admit it does happen from time to time 🤷♀️.)
A few years ago, I even declared email bankruptcy and moved everything from my inbox into a folder called "to be sorted" just to give myself a fresh start.
But without a process to manage it, I quickly fell back into old habits of only addressing the important things and I ended up right back where I started with hundreds of emails in my inbox.
Fast forward to last month when I read the book Uptime: A Personal Guide to Productivity and Wellbeing that came highly recommended by a client. She knows me well, because I loved it!
The author's take on email felt fresh and doable, so I decided to try again by implementing her strategies.
And here are my biggest take-aways:
Cleaning out my inbox was cathartic. So much so that I did it all in one sitting. Once I started deleting, unsubscribing, and archiving I just kept going until I'd gotten through thousands of emails. I didn't want to risk losing momentum and I'm glad I did it that way.
Unsubscribing is freedom. I'm one of those people who's afraid to miss out on a good deal from my favorite brands. So, I stay subscribed to way too many emails. I realized that not only will I likely spend less, but if I want a discount on something I'm already going to buy, I can just resubscribe in the future. Done.
Deciding in advance how to sort emails was so helpful. I set up folders for 4 main categories ahead of time and that made sorting emails fast and easy. Here's what that author suggested:
Read / Revisit / Respond / Add To List
My inbox was weighing on me more than I realized. Now that I've experienced both ways - cluttered & inbox zero, I can say that I prefer the latter. For a tool that I open multiple times a day, it just feels so much more calming. But, I know that if life gets busy and I fall back into old habits, I'll be ok. Neither one is right, but with this new process, my choice is the clean, and minimal inbox.
Opening up my inbox now, I know exactly what to do. There's no confusion or overwhelm. I just choose from one of two tasks:
Sorting new emails that have come in into the 4 categories - read, review, respond, add to list (or archive)
Processing one of the 4 categories (for example, opening up the respond folder and replying to as many emails as I can in that chunk of time).
It's essentially batching, and I find it to be so much faster to split up the sorting and the processing.
It takes restraint and isn't always possible, but on the days I can separate those two activities to separate times of the day, email is a breeze.
Book a Planning Intensive!
If you want help creating an email system, organizing your calendar, or creating a routine to make daily life easier, I'd love for you to book a Planning Intensive. You'll be amazed at how much we can accomplish in this super fun, one-off strategy session.