A Declaration to Declutter: 10 Tips to Wring Out the Old and Bring In the New!

January is the perfect time to reset our priorities and start anew, especially after a year like the one that is (thankfully!) in our rear view mirror. And today, following a bit of well-deserved down time and reflection, we can apply the benefits of 2020 hindsight and survival skills we picked up along the way, and put forth a New Year’s resolution we can actually keep.  

No, we are not talking pounds here, but something else that weighs us down, day after day – our overcrowded, disorganized, inundated mess we commonly refer to as an Inbox. And now there is clear evidence that shows that mismanaging this essential business communication tool not only lowers our productivity, but it can also impact our overall health and sense of well-being.   

In the early days of my career, I worked with a company that revolutionized email led by visionaries that included one of the founding fathers of the Internet, Vint Cerf at MCI back in the mid '90s at the dawn of the Digital Age.

But what they probably didn’t anticipate was how email could actually slow you down and have a negative impact on your ability to do your job well.

The good news is that there are solutions available now that don’t cost anything, and if we simply commit to them and take deliberate steps NOW, we can begin our New Year with a truly fresh start that will help us realize our career and life goals at the same time.

What are they?

Think Small - Grow Big!

In this first of my monthly posts, we look at what is happening with email, as there are symptoms and signs all around us that we can sense and stress about but don’t often recognize as the cause, and come up with proven solutions that work.

Impact of Clutter on Health and Wellness- It’s Real

Cluttered workspaces increase stress and anxiety levels, reduce our ability to focus, and negatively impact our diet and sleep patterns. According to this recent article in The Harvard Business Review, workplace stress is costing American businesses up to $190 billion every year in healthcare costs alone.

The Princeton University Neuroscience Institute has also published research on the impact of clutter and how it can affect our physical and mental state, and concluded that our brains actually like things to be in order, and that constant visual reminders of disorganization drain our “hard drive“, reduce our ability to focus, and increase procrastination. Clutter has a way of diverting our attention away from the task at hand, as another study by The Princeton Neuroscience Institute showed that the more things in your field of view (including a crowded desk space and office) the more things compete for your attention. This is especially true for the growing number of telecommuters and home office workers who often need to carve out space and have more distractions than ever.

So how can we do to join the participants in the study who cleared clutter from their work environment, improved their ability to focus and process information, reduce procrastination, and increase their productivity?

Let's Start With Your Inbox!

So, you woke up today gearing up for a fresh new start to 2021, open your email, and you see 4 emails from people and companies you have never heard of, like the one I received with the Subject Line: New Year! New Opportunities! Really? Why Me you ask? And a weekly email you subscribed to 3 years ago that you haven’t read since then.

What’s the answer? Start with reorganizing and limiting your emails to a manageable number and consider how relevant they are to you. Here’s how:

10 Tips to Topple Your Email Clutter

1.   Sort by Source

How many emails are stuck in your Inbox that you haven’t read yet? Start with sorting them by From, and you will quickly see how many you receive, and how often, from those you have already determined are not helpful to you, as you would have already read them by now!

2.   Underserved/Unsubscribe - Most of us receive emails from companies we have never heard of, but we remain in a vicious cycle of being too busy to delete or unsubscribe to them. Invest 15 seconds each today to keep them out of your inbox for good. Do a search of your inbox using the word “unsubscribe” and they will fall in line, all wrapped up and ready to tap on the shoulder of your new best friend – The Delete key. 

3.   Make a Date - Once you have completed steps 1 and 2, review those early 2020 emails and apply the 5 second rule- Address it, File it in a Folder, or Delete it. Next!

4.   Rules of the Road -You can do this with your Inbox and Sent as well, and if you multitask on many projects like I do, it is a true game changer. Outlook users can opt for Focused, an option that presents emails from Senders you designate into a split screen view. You can turn Focused Inbox on by going to the View tab and toggling the “Show Focused Inbox” option on or off.

5.   Common Causes - Search for common topics, names, addresses, and verbiage to view as a group similar emails to delete. I searched for the words “events” and “newsletters” and pulled up over 40 emails I had not read. Many were not worth keeping, and I unsubscribed to several that were no longer relevant. Get rid of them now!

6.   Delete or Save Emails After You Review Them - It’s 2021, time for change. Don’t leave an email in you inbox once you deal with them. Save or Delete? You have 2 choices, and 5 seconds to be done with them. Have a long list of emails? Rather than wear out your Delete key and add blisters to your fingers, simply check the box to the left of the first email you plan to delete, hold down the Shift key, and delete them all in one fell swoop! It’s a delightful sound, turn up your speakers as you hear the crumpled paper for full impact. 

7.   Use Your Calendar – emails that reference meetings, events, or even reminders (including a week-end purge of emails!) can be used to schedule them, and then delete the email. You can also keep the notes from that email in your Calendar. Done. Next!

8.   Update Your Email Signoff and Include It Every Time  - How many times do people call or text you asking for your address, mobile #, or link to your website or social media? This leads to more unnecessary emails, and is a total waste of time. It can also result in missed business opportunities for others to recommend you or tie you into an event meeting. Spend a minute or two adjusting your email signoff, make sure it includes your title, email address, website and social, and be done with it.

9.   Adjust Desktop Notifications- Are you one of those who responds to every post within seconds? Not every email is a priority, yet we often treat them that way. A recent study showed that we interrupt ourselves with email every 5 minutes, and the distraction is a productivity killer, as 40% or more of your productivity can be impacted, including hours procrastinating. Oh wow, look at what that 3 headed cat is doing on Facebook or Instagram! Really? It can wait!

You can also Enable Notifications for Priority level people and strategic partners, and fellow employees. Not all emails are equally important. A message from your boss is different than a message from your spouse or a message from someone you don’t even know. So how about we start with a Notification group at 8am, one at 1pm, and another at 4:30pm to help reduce stress and increase your ability to focus on the priority you have already set?

10.  One and Done – in a book entitled The Ultimate Sales Machine, the author Chet Holmes says “If you spend just 15 minutes per day to revisit, readdress, or reread documents or emails, you will waste 97 hours per year where no action is taken.” That’s about 10 business days per year! Can’t deal with an email right away? Don’t open it! And when you do, take action, and use the 2-Minute Rule created by productivity author David Allen that says” If a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately”.

Wasted time in how you manage and process your email has proven to be a drag on your productivity. Follow these steps now for a powerful ROI on your productivity, as it costs nothing but your time. Invest an hour or so this week and 10 minutes at the end of each week, and it will save you many hours this year and beyond otherwise lost. And it will feel incredibly rewarding as you will be liberated to spend those precious hours doing things you love, as you reduce your stress and stay on track with your short and long term goals.

Think Small. Grow Big!