55000 emails...

[despondentatwork]

How do you stay on top of your inbox??? I have so many emails that I don't know where to start deleting and I'm about to start a new job. Feel like if I could empty my inbox, my mind would be clearer!!!!

Can you sort by sender? I used to use that for work emails (Outlook). I would find whole groups of emails from people I'd had contact with years before, often of the 'Thanks', 'Good to speak earlier, here's that link' type, so easy to delete.

Can you start by filtering all the emails with 'unsubscribe' in them? You can delete most of them!

Leila gharani on YouTube has a good short video with some tips on how you can better manage your inbox.

Sort by subject.
Weed out the threads about things that have been and gone like birthday cake.
Then sort by sender.

You could just move them into a new folder and look through it at odd moments. Meanwhile your inbox is clear and manageable.

you can do a sweep based on sender. then apply a filter so those go to a particular folder within your inbox.
Then as soon as an email comes in - read it- if you can action it then do it or save for later. or delete.

I'd just delete them all and start again at that point and sort them once a day.

Useful ideas!

Personally, I would move everything older than around a week into a General Archive folder, so that it's out if sight but there if you need it.

Go through all the emails less than a week old and:

• unsubscribe from all marketing
• delete any that are not relevant to you or that you have actioned
• create folders for emails you need to keep for reference
• red flag any that need action.

Aim to keep your inbox completely empty apart from flagged messages.

Schedule in specific time in your diary to action each email, whether it's a quick reply or a longer piece of work.

Google Inbox Zero.

move them all to an archive folder, unless you're sure you'll never need to refer to them again, or even better export to a file.

Start clean. Emails I filter as I read - Either delete immediately, act immediately then move to a category folder, or leave in the inbox until I have dedicated admin time, half of the ones I leave get sorted by someone else in the chain by the time I address it, who either is more invested or has more free time.