From The Top Down, Zap Inbox E-clutter

Today is the 4th day of the international Clean Out Your Inbox Week

How many times have you scoured your inbox to find that important e-mail you had received weeks before? How much time have you spent opening and closing numerous messages to find that one tidbit of information you were looking for?By not managing our inboxes effectively and efficiently, we are forced to spend valuable time weeding through e-clutter. If you let your inboxes grow e-clutter can creep up quickly, causing you to spend needless time searching for information in your disorganized inbox. The more you have to scroll through, the more time you waste.

The solution to e-clutter? Just get it out of there! We don’t put letters back in our mailboxes; why should we leave e-mails in our inbox? I have talked to people who have left over a thousand items in their inbox. This practice promotes scrolling as a way to decide what to work on next, rather than making an intentional decision as to what do with your time.

Today’s Tip:  Instead of scrolling through e-mails looking for what’s most important, start at the top. This will shorten the process by streamlining it. Only go to the next message after you have moved the one above it out of the inbox – either to the trash, a reference folder, or an action folder.