620-How To Clear Your Email Inbox For More Happiness And Calm In Your Life

Declaring Email bankruptcy and starting fresh was a game changer for me, and today, I’m going to share with you how I did it. 

 

Transcript:

 

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2-ish minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and if you listened yesterday to the episode about declaring clutter bankruptcy, I wanted to follow up with a hack for email too. Email and paper are by far my two biggest and chronic problems in staying organized, staying clear focused and staying on my game.  I’m in a constant state of struggle with keeping up with the email and paper.   

 

Thankfully, my friend C Lee’s course has helped me put systems into place for most of the paper.  And this email system does work for me.  But I will warn you, it’s not a one and done for me.  I’ve declared email bankruptcy multiple times.  

 

Here’s how it works.  Create a folder in your email system called “bankruptcy April 2022” or whenever you are doing this.  You can also use “Archive April 2022”  The words don’t matter as long as it is something you can remember.   If you do this more than once you can even nest your bankruptcy folders - oh yeah, I’ve been then.  

 

This does two things.  First, it immediately gets you to Inbox Zero with a clean slate.  This feels amazing.  Second, it keeps everything in a searchable archive so if you are looking for that recipe a friend sent you, a confirmation for the sweater you ordered online, it’s all there.  And if you use Gmail, it’s all very searchable.  

 

You can also, at your leisure, review your bankruptcy folder and mass delete from specific senders and look for items that you really do want to organize in your email reference folder, for example.  Most of the time, if someone needs something from you and you haven’t responded, they will email again, so this system works pretty well. 

 

If you use the snooze feature on Gmail, the snoozed email will pop up in your inbox at the time you indicated.   

 

So, that’s my tip for clearing the email clutter so that you can feel less stressed, less overwhelmed and that translates to a little bit happier.  If you are interested in how to banish that paper clutter, you have a couple days to jump into the free masterclass by my good friend C Lee.  She’s a professional organizer and she’s got the best system for success with your paper piles.  You can get our Everyday Happiness link in the show notes.  And remember, kindness is contagious, so go out there into the world and be extra kind to someone today. 

 

The Paper Cleanse:  https://www.cleecawley.com/a/2147507426/jSi8hVBL

 

In the spirit of full disclosure, if you enroll in the Paper Cleanse via my link, I'll receive a small commission.  Because your success is important to me, I only recommend systems that I've personally used to create real results in my own life. The KARMA system works and C Lee is a great teacher.  

 

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And, let’s connect on social at @everydayhappinesswithkatie  and join the community on the hashtags #IntentionalMargins and #everydayhappinesswithkatie on Instagram

 

Links:  https://onamission.bio/everydayhappiness/