7 Incredibly Useful Inbox Management Tips

Does opening your inbox every morning give you anxiety?

Has the number of unread emails got a little out of control?

No idea where to start on tackling your inbox?

Being a virtual assistant means I have seen some chaotic inboxes across the years, although no judgment here, it's so easy for them to get a little out of control if you have a particularly busy period or you just have a million other things on your plate.

Below are some top tips to help you get your inbox organised again AND stay that way! 😊

1. Declutter - this is a full time job in itself but set aside a full hour to hunker down, put your headphones on and focus solely on deleting and unsubscribing to all promotional and junk emails that you are no longer interested in. You'd be surprised at how many are cluttering up you inbox. A quick way to sift through junk is to arrange your inbox by 'sent from' and it'll show you all the emails sent by that stationary company you once purchased a notebook from but now have a billion discount sale emails from! You can highlight them all and delete in one click! Once you have done this full hour, start to schedule in 10 mins every morning to quickly do a declutter and you'll be on top of all those annoying junk emails in no time!

2. Prioritise – being able to see in one glance the emails that need to take priority and mustn't get lost in a sea of unread emails, is key to inbox management success. By simply red flagging important and time urgent emails you can make sure that they don't get forgotten. Remember that you can filter out flagged emails so if you need to access them quickly, they are easy to find.

3. Categorise – colour coding and labeling emails within your inbox is a really helpful way of creating clarity in your inbox. You might have a particular project coming up that you want to highlight in your inbox or perhaps you want to create a category for 'action-pending' or 'waiting for a reply' emails.

4. Organise Folders - all inboxes need to have an easy to follow folder system. Ideally you want to have hardly any emails in your inbox. So when an email is read or actioned, either file it away under a appropriately named folder or perhaps you could pop into an archive folder, so you have it for future reference, but it doesn't stay sat in your inbox clogging up your view.

5. Apply Rules and Filters – remember you have these at your disposal, use them. Applying the right rule can save you lots of time, especially when you are due to be receiving a lot of emails into your inbox. For example, you might be about to receive numerous emails applying for a new role you've recently posted . Applying the right rule means all these responses can go into one folder, ready for you to view when you are ready! Remember if you start to colour code or label emails you can use the filter option to quickly access them.

6. Set Reminders – I love a reminder! We all need a nudge every now and again, we just can't remember everything. Which is why I love adding a reminder to certain emails to give me a little friendly prompt to respond to an email or do a certain action.

7. Create Templates - writing stock responses in your drafts that you can easily reuse is an absolute game changer if you find yourself sending the same type of email over and over again.

Phew! There is quite a lot to do there, but even doing just one or two of these tips can really make a difference to your inbox. Give it a go!

Although if you just don't have the time at the moment to sort your inbox out, hiring a virtual assistant might be the best way to start you off on the right track. Let me to do it for you! Click the button below to book in for a free 30 minute discovery call.

I'd love to have a chat to see how I can support you! :)