Which side are you on?
Yankees-Red Sox, Leftie-Righty, Dems — Repubs — Relax, none of these topics are for today’s discussion. Let’s keep it simple.
Today we are talking about the below picture, whether it resembles your iPhone screen or whether it makes you a little queasy just looking at it. Which side of email management do you lean toward?
I don’t know if the divide started amongst friends, co-workers or spouses. And I certainly know, from polling about 50 people’s phones for this blog, there is no one in the middle. You either are diligent in reviewing incoming emails or you have given up on trying to go back to 2015 to delete/read emails. (Sorry did I give away what side I am on?)
Paula Abdul penned the phrase way back in 1990 — “We come together ’cause opposites attract” (In my head all I see is her dancing with that cat). It may have been 30 years before her time, but I think she meant individuals and their style for email management attract.
Me — I am queasy just looking at the picture. My wife — She has many amazing qualities that I am envious of but certainly this could very well be her iPhone screen.
Yes, like many debates, I will agree there is no right/wrong here. I will however throw out some tips for those who have ~12,177 unread emails, how you can work your way to maintaining tight inboxes. I will make the assumption that most people reading this have at least a work and a personal email account, I know some have more.
My Tips — Just views from one person’s 25 years of email
1 — Have to Unsubscribe — The first rule of any well manicured inbox is a reduction in legitimate but unimportant emails. (See below for Spam). These are emails from popular stores/websites/work vendors that you at some point frequented. We all want to keep some of these, I mean how else would we know today is Free Dunkin Monday. But I am sure some of you still receive emails from “The Knot” and you have been married for 20 years. Take some time each week and unsubscribe from useless emails. They are not spam or junk, but they are useless at this point in your life. If you are not unsubscribing, both work and personal related, to 10+ sites per month you are failing your way to a great inbox. We all order stuff online and forget to uncheck those wonderful marketing boxes to get the latest offers. I admit, I just unsubscribed from shop Disney while writing this. They got me when I signed up for Disney + (Yes, we watched Hamilton, it was great).
2 — Clear your inbox & use folders — I counted, I have 82 folders off my inbox for work and 22 off my inbox on my personal account. I have 14 emails in my inbox for work and 8 emails in my personal inbox. You need a clean inbox. Keep only emails you need to take action on or are waiting to take action on. Once you have taken necessary action, put them in a folder in case you need it later. Also, if you responded, it is sitting in your Sent items, see that tip below. Your main inbox can’t have more than 50–100 emails and this is something you should review daily, if not weekly, to see what actions you need to still take and if you have solved these issues, put them in another folder.
3 — Use delete —If you respond to an email, as you know, it stays in your sent items. Why do you need to keep the email you responded to as well? You don’t. Let your sent items folder be the large folder. If the email has a file, that is what a folder is for, throw it in their but get it out of your main inbox. Don’t worry, Enron isn’t coming back to haunt you for deleting an email about golfing on Friday.
4 — Sorry, I am sure email enthusiasts will be upset by this, but absolutely, under no circumstances, should you use filters except for spam. I cringe when people say I filter all of these emails or that emails into this folder, or if I am cc’d they go here. Stop. You can’t properly manage your inbox on the hope that someone else is following your email philosophy. Yes, we all know cc’d people is just for FYI, but guess what, we all make mistakes and put people in the wrong category from time to time. Especially for work, don’t assume people always follow general etiquette. And yes as managers and leaders, there are times we reply all when we are cc’d because maybe someone forgot an important detail. Filters are where emails go to die, but they may be ones you desperately need.
5 — Check your Spam weekly — Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning are beautiful things. Using Spam filters are a must for all organizations to secure and protect data. However, even AI is wrong every once in a while. You should always check your Spam as there will be a few emails per month that accidently get put into this folder that are important. If you are not checking it often, you will miss out on your old colleague running that office NCAA Hoops Pool.
Yes, some think this is just their normal daily routine and to some they may think I am obsessed. There is an art to managing inboxes. No right or wrong, but we have all heard people say, “Wow, I am sorry, I get a ton of emails, I must have missed that email”. I make a lot of mistakes in life and at work, but I don’t miss emails and to my recollection, I have not used this excuse. It is on me to ensure I read what people send me, even if it ends up being irrelevant. I am responsive and it has worked for me. OK, sorry, have to run, my inbox is piling up, I have 12 unread emails.
Which side are you on?
