to be overwhelmed by emails and want to delete them all

[outofofficeagain]

Help

I run my own business.

As a caveat, I have quite a few mental health issues, anxiety mainly, which is causing my to feel overwhelmed.

I have over 6,000 emails in my inboxes. Most of them are completely irrelevant/newsletters or spam, but it's causing me complete paralaysis.

I'm missing ones that are important, other important ones are being sent to junk. I don't know where to start.

It also seems to do that thing where it lumps all messages together so often I don't see replies as it's got filed under a chain.

It's a mess and is making me panic. I really want to sort it out but I don't know where to start. I know it's not an impossible task but it feels it. I'm so busy I don't feel I have time to sit down and sort it out.

Help!

Please tell me
a) how to sort out the current shitshow
b) how to stop it happening again.

I’ve been in your shoes. Have a look on YouTube, there are some great tips for how to use gmail correctly so it doesn’t overwhelm you. Working with a VA to set up a system you can follow is a great idea. I have all the newsletters filtered into a newsletters folder and deleted from my inbox automatically so I can read them if/when I want to. There are also apps that can delete and unsubscribe you automatically.

Don't despair. It's a big problem for a lot of people, including my boss.

I go into his account a few times during the day and I go through the new emails and "star" anything he needs to deal with. So he concentrates on the "starred" folder.

In addition, we have set up sub folders called "invoices to pay" "dad" "things to order" etc. So after I have starred all the important stuff, I then go through the starred mail folder and drag stuff into the relevant sub folders.

I agree with other posters, unsubscribe from the crap. And once a day, sort your in-box by sender alphabetically and day one, delete all old crap from A. Day two, delete old crap from B. Day three - C. and so on. By the end of the month all the old crap has gone. You can unsubscribe at the same time.

I also agree that the emails going into one long thread is a pain. I think it's called "conversations" on Google? I deselected this option.

If you can sort out another email address just to use on the internet, rather than your "business" email address, that might help as over time the crap finds it's way into there rather than your main business one.

It will take a little bit of effort to beat it in to submission, but worth it once you have done it.

I see your 6k and raise you 32k in one account and 5k in another.
Just ignore them.
Go back to a date that you're happy with (three months ago?) and batch delete everything behind that?
Or just ignore the number and forget about it?

You can get your computer to sort by From rather than by Date. That speeds deleting up immensely. Then set up Rules and Folders for future emails. Then make a Rule for yourself that you only look at emails after you’ve prioritised your work schedule for the day.

I see your 32K and raise you 150k in my bosses in-box. They go back to 2010 and maybe before. I have suggested he deletes the crap, but he doesn't want to!!

BREAK|NG NEWS

a) organising by sender is complete game changer. I'm going through the rest of them this evening.

b) I found an email from thetrainline.com replying to a complaint I made about a cancelled train in August. They had offered to refund the ticket price in full but I needed to respond to the email, which had just disappeared into the void. I've replied and they are refunding me £300!!!!!!!!!

hurrah! Hope you feel better now, and can keep on top of them.