daily declutter

[yukonsally]

A few months ago, I committed to dealing with the mail the day it arrived. Junk mail goes directly into recycling. Bills go on the desk to be handled appropriately.

So why not do the same with my email?

I address it as soon as I can. If I'm not going to read it, I should delete it, not let it languish unread in my inbox. Delete the junk immediately. A coupon? Not going to use it, delete it.

Digital clutter is still clutter.

Comments

[adair]

Yes, that's the way to do it. Unfortunately, I don't delete everything because I think I might want to reread it, or actually comment, or buy something, or make the political donation, or WhatEver, but do not make the decision immediately. I end up cleaning out a lot every month or so. I also get newspapers via email, and hang on to the links for far too long. Congratulations on your self-disciplien.

[fred_mouse]

I have a couple of folders for those kinds of emails, and clear them out intermittently. I've found that it helps with keeping my inbox clearer, because I often wait until the weekend to read through the article links alerts.

[yukonsally]

oh, I keep emails forever. I'll never reach inbox zero. I will, however, deal with emails as they come in. I'll read and delete, or read and keep, or delete. There are no unread emails in my box.

[fred_mouse]

Absolutely. Like you, I try and clear my inbox, although I find that if I miss a day for any reason, I can't recover back to the empty inbox very quickly. My current plan is to see whether setting a timer helps, because otherwise I will look at yesterday's and not know where to start. But if I keep going back and finding 'just one thing' maybe I'll get it under control :)

[hooloovoo_42]

I have 5 email addresses which come into 3 separate gmail accounts. This afternoon, I've gone through the 3 main addresses and sorted out the 238 unread mail items - either deleted or marked as read.

I try to keep up with them as they come in, but I tend to make sure I delete them on my laptop, rather than on my phone (for tedious technical reasons!), and on days when I have a full evening, I leave them for later. Then later passes and they're still there.

What I need to do next is go through the several thousand read emails and delete the ones I really don't need to keep for more than 10 years :-o