trash-pile

For a long time I have been held hostage by my email box. From the time I wake up to the time I pass out in front of my desk, emails crash up against the shore of my productivity. I’ve tried just about every trick in the book (short of hiring someone to read my mail) to varying degrees of success but all of them have failed spectacularly. There is something about setting up a bunch of complex labels, folders and other assorted mailbox brick-a-brack that is even more annoying than just reading it all.

Recently, I’ve come across a system that has worked well enough for me — one of the most poorly organized people this side of the Mason-Dixon — that I thought it fit to share.

To do it, you’ll need three things.

1. An email client
2. A To-Do list
3. An itchy trigger finger

The “system,” if you can call it one starts with opening your email box and realizing that there are only three kinds of mail: things you need to do, things you need to keep and things that need to disappear for ever.

Things you need to do – Work related emails fall squarely into this category, these are things that have a deadline or that you need to be reminded about. Your job once you read these kinds of emails is to transcribe the action (the thing you actually need to do) to your favorite To-Do list and then promptly sort the email itself into column three.

Things you need to keep – The only emails that belong in this pile are those that have information you can’t lose and can’t file anywhere else. This does not include: account logins, receipts, email newsletters, internet memes, chain letters or any kind of mass mailer. All of this sort of junk can be processed and the important information put somewhere else besides your mailbox. This column is designed to hold information temporarily that you might need access to while you are away from your computer — things like travel itineraries or directions. Once you “use” the information, it should then make its way into column three.

Things that need to disappear – If I were a better person, I’d put every other piece of email I receive into the trash but unfortunately, I am a pack rat by nature so I’ve made myself a compromise — if I think the email could be useful in the future I hit archive — otherwise, I trash it. Either way, it gets the email out of the inbox, which is the important part.

The secret of this system is to realize that column one and three make up the vast majority of your daily mail, and that peace of mind comes when you realize that most of the stuff you believe should go into column two really belongs in one of the others.

Take a day to try it out and tell me if it works for you as well as it has for me.

(Images)

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