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How to quickly catch up on email

I recently returned from an amazing, whirlwind family vacation. I looked at my email once or twice the morning we left, and then didn’t open it again until I returned to the office. It was glorious.

Until I realized there were over 400 emails in my inbox. 😳

This doesn’t just happen after vacation. Maybe it’s a week with endless meetings, extra time focused on a project, too much time on Facebook, or any other reason our email inboxes get out of control.

Regardless of the reason, 400 or 10,000 unread emails in your inbox is stressful.

Figuring out how to catch up on email while you’re also catching up on actual work can be challenging.

But it doesn’t have to be!

I once worked with a guy who, when he returned from vacation, would delete all emails and voicemails without looking at them. That’s certainly one way to catch up on email!

The first time I witnessed this behavior, I was in awe.

I’ve since heard it described as “declaring email bankruptcy,” or wiping the slate clean and starting over.

Email bankruptcy: When your email inbox is so overloaded that you delete everything and start over from scratch.

I don’t know about you, but there is no way I could ever have the nerve to do that.

In this particular co-worker’s case, a large percentage of his work was time-sensitive, meaning that 75% of his messages probably were irrelevant after any length of time.

The remaining 25% would haunt me. What was there? What if it was important?

His theory was that if it was truly important, the person would ask again. Considering that I never heard anyone comment about his work going unfinished, he must have been right.

If you’re like me, and can’t fathom actually declaring email bankruptcy, I’ve found an alternate solution that achieves the majority of the benefits, without any of the risk:

The “Archive all” function.

This “safer” alternative to declaring email bankruptcy removes all emails from your inbox, unclutters your daily workspace, and gives you the mental space needed to start fresh.

Bonus: If you truly need a piece of information from one of those emails, it’s there.

And unlike shoving stuff in a physical closet, most email accounts have enough space that this has no effect on storing or retrieving any other emails.

How to use the Archive All function to catch up on email

In Gmail:
Practically speaking, Gmail makes this incredibly simple with the “archive” button.

1. Simply select all of your emails (select the button at the top)
2. Then hit the “Archive” button.
3. Gmail pops up a notification that “All 50 conversations on this page are selected. Select all 402 conversations in Inbox” (Obviously, this is my example, and 402 would show the total number of conversations you have in your inbox).
4. Choose to Select All and hit the Archive button.
5. If you really want to take a quick scan, you can archive by page with 50 at a time.

In Outlook, or another email client:
1. Create a new folder.
2. Label the folder “Archive.”
3. Select all the emails in your inbox (CTRL + A on a PC, or Command + A on a Mac).
4. With all emails selected, simply drag and drop over to the newly created Archive folder.

You can now start from a clean slate, with the ability to find any lingering email when someone asks you in the hallway, “Hey, did you get my email about XYZ?”

Need a simplified day-to-day email management strategy along with a vacation strategy? Check out this super simple email organization methodology.

One way to effectively organize digital information

By Sarah 11 Comments

Does your computer often feel like the digital equivalent to endless piles all over a desk? You know what you’re looking for is there, but you just can’t find it.

We’ve all been there at some point. The good news is that you don’t have to stay there. Just like a good physical organization and purge, there is one effective way to organize digital information.

All good things come in threes, right? I sure hope so, because there are three pillars in my system to organize digital information: Evernote, Dropbox and Google.

How to organize digital information effectively:

Each pillar in my organization system has a distinct purpose. Each content piece and information type is only stored one place. Evernote, Dropbox and Google all have unique strengths and weaknesses. For the most effective organization system, we are going to use the strengths of each system and layer them together to avoid weaknesses.

Evernote:

All notes, correspondence and key information to remember. This includes both personal and business information for my own business. I do have a separate Evernote account for my corporate job for security and separation.

A few of the information types that I store in Evernote:

Medical records. Fantastic for growth charts and immunization records for the kids, along with your health insurance cards and key numbers! With Evernote, that information is right at my smartphone fingertips. It’s glorious.
Auto information. How many times are you asked for your license plate number and can’t remember it? I’ve also had more times than I would have expected that I was asked for my VIN number. See above. Glorious information when you need it.
Journal. I can type so.much.faster than I can write by hand. I know purists cringe, but better to have ideas recorded somewhere than not at all, right?
Food. I’ve got both recipes and restaurants listed with a boatload of tags to easily find what I’m looking for at the drop of a hat – or when “What should we do for dinner tonight?” strikes all too often.

Dropbox:

Any document that’s already formatted in a specific file type (basically anything that’s not a text note). This includes PDFs, Word docs, Excel docs, images, etc.

Evernote has the capability to add attachments to notes, and Evernote Premium includes the ability to search within those documents, but I haven’t managed to give up the folder structure and ease of Dropbox, along with the sharing capabilities.

How I make this work seamlessly with Evernote: I include a link to any Dropbox files or folders in an Evernote note, making a Dropbox file just as easy to access as an attachment in Evernote. Why, yes, yes, that is a good idea, thank you.

Google:

Specifically, Gmail and Google Drive.
I heart Gmail. Email is a fantastic communication tool, but should not be used to store information for reference. Any emails or emailed information that needs to be referenced get saved to Evernote (the email to Evernote feature of Evernote Premium is a fantastic easy way to do this).

I love Google Drive for the ease of collaboration. Evernote and Dropbox can’t come anywhere near the ease of Google Drive for collaboratively building work and quick and easy updates. Google Drive has far fewer documents than either Evernote or Dropbox, but I’m not willing to give up the functionality to cut out one more system.

How I make Google Drive work seamlessly with Evernote: Same as Dropbox, I include a link to any Google Drive files or folders in an Evernote note.

The two keys to making it all work together:

Link documents where relevant.
Use the same folder structure in each system. This makes it super easy to see at a glance what you have where, and easy to find what you’re looking for.

Your Next Step:

Get the Digital Organization Audit Worksheet using the form below and start eliminating chaos from your computer today!

How to set up filters in Gmail and experience email bliss

By Sarah Leave a Comment

On any given day, hundreds of emails can flood your inbox. On top of work-related emails, there’s the school information, Amazon notifications, bank statements and the endless, endless lists of promo emails that you don’t even remember signing up for.

It’s entirely too easy to miss out on the important information (I see you, library almost-due and overdue notices) with all the clutter.

Unsubscribing from non-critical information is one way to go, but often there’s that occasional email that you do want and don’t want to miss out on.

How do you easily remove the clutter to focus on what’s important – without ditching it entirely?

One super easy way is to set up filters in Gmail!

I have filters set to automatically send almost all of my emails to the relevant folder – automatically “filing” them away for me. It’s genius.

How to Set Up Filters in Gmail

1. Select an email.

2. From the top menu bar, select “More.”

3. Select “Filter messages like these.”

4. Create Filter with this search.

5. Apply the label (you can add new labels here, or select from a pre-existing list).

6. Decide whether or not it should Skip the Inbox (hint: If it has a label, it probably should skip the inbox).

7. Check the “Also apply filter to [number] matching conversations.”

8. Click “Create Filter”

9. Experience email bliss!

Setting up filters is a great one-time action that will save you time and energy every day moving forward. Take 5 minutes today and set up your email filters.