Has your Inbox turned into a monster sucking the time out of your day?

Mine did. Until I slayed it, once and for all.

Like everybody else, I get lots of emails every day.

A vast majority of them I didn’t even read. But they kept clogging up my inbox. The ones I wanted to read got buried deeper and deeper.

I subscribe to a lot of newsletters but when I receive them I didn’t get time to read them.

Sometimes I would open it, read a bit, find it useful, and then close it to read it later when I have more time. That later never came.

Then last year I implemented a five-step strategy to bring my inbox to zero and keep it that way.

This is what I did.

1. I created a folder called Inbox 2 and moved all the existing emails there. The whole 9000 of them. I left them there. If I needed them they are there.

2. As new emails started arriving in the empty Inbox, I started unsubscribing the ones I wasn’t reading anymore.

3. I subscribed to a read-it-later app and forwarded the ones I wanted to read.

4. Emails that demanded action from me went to my task manager.

5. If there was something that required a calendar event, it went to my calendar.

Now I spend 7 – 10 minutes a day on my inbox.

I take action on the tasks in the time allocated for them, usually once or twice a week.

I read the ones I want to read during my reading time, usually at night or when I am waiting in queues or reception rooms.

Now emails don’t sit heavy on my head and I have free mental space to write.

What is your email management strategy?