ProdPod, a Productivity Podcast
Business
An overflowing inbox is something that we have all probably experienced at some point in our personal and professional lives. Unexpected life circumstances happen and as well we sometimes get lax in our discipline to manage our email traffic on a regular basis. In this episode I give a simple strategy for managing this email overload and some email services that are handy to help manage your email from getting to that point in the first place.
Services mentioned in this episode:
The first step is to shut off the email spigot. Create a strategy for sustainably processing your inbox from today forward. Then look at your backlog and attempt to establish a breadcrumb method for dealing with the back email messages. For example, a friend and colleague of mine takes the oldest days worth of email and the last two days' email to process. Doing this every workday along with keeping up with the inbound email today is manageable and in just a few days or weeks's time, you're back to Inbox Zero.
To help with shutting off the email spigot, there's an email service called Unroll.me. It helps you unsubscribe from all those email newsletters you think you should be receiving but they're really just distractions.
Another service is called Sanebox. It automatically filters messages that you don't need to deal with right now so that you can bring those into view when you actually want to address them. I really enjoy being able to train Sanebox and seeing the statistics of how many hours it saves of my time.
Also a favorite service of mine is Boomerang Gmail. It enables you to send email out of view then come back to you at a predetermined date and time. Also Boomerang Gmail is able to schedule an outbound email and has several other really great features so check this one out, for sure.
And finally there's a new service called Gmail Valet. What I understand about the service is that there are real humans who have access to your inbox. And, as new email arrives they review your email to see whether or not it's actionable. If it is, they add it to a task list for you and otherwise move nonactionable items according to your specifications. It's currently free to use in beta!
So there you have it, a strategy for dealing with email overload and some services that can possibly help you from it getting overwhelming in the first place.
ProdPod: Episode 98 -- The Power of Short-Term Challenges
ProdPod: Episode 97–Time Thieves, Time Thugs, and Time Terrorists - How to Combat Them So You Can Get Back to Being Productive
ProdPod: Episode 96–Time Thieves, Thugs and Terrorists - Who They Are So You Can Identify Them Efficiently
ProdPod: Episode 95–Effective Meeting Series: More Productivity Meetings With Robert's Rules, Part II
ProdPod: Episode 94–Effective Meeting Series: More Productivity Meetings With Robert's Rules, Part I
ProdPod: Episode 93–Gamification and Your Productivity
ProdPod: Episode 92--Rewarding Yourself for Productive Habit Development and Reaching Goals
ProdPod: Episode 91 -- What Do You Own?
ProdPod: Episode 90 -- Biology, Self-Actualization and Your Productivity
ProdPod: Episode 89 -- Multi-Sensory Productivity
ProdPod: Episode 88 -- Defining Happiness
ProdPod: Episode 87 -- Two-Minute Book Summary: The First 20 Hours
ProdPod: Episode 86 -- The Kaizen Way: What Are the Elements of Kaizen? with Sally Reinholdt (Part 2 of 2)
ProdPod: Episode 85 — The Kaizen Way: What is the Kaizen Way? with Sally Reinholdt (Part 1 of 2)
ProdPod: Episode 84 -- Two-Minute Book Summary: The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
ProdPod: Episode 83 -- 31 Folders Instead of the GTD 43 Folders
ProdPod: Episode 82 -- Procrasti-Doing
ProdPod: Episode 81 -- Productivity and Your Two Minds
ProdPod: Episode 80 -- Setting Up Your Workspace for Success
ProdPod: Episode 79 - Hoarding, Part III - How is hoarding treated and managed? with Professional Organizer Sally Reinholdt
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