Use This Simple Sorting Routine and Tame The Email Beast Forever

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Do you ever feel as if your email account is like an of control monster?

It is and it will continue to grow and consume far too much of your time and mindset than it should unless YOU take control and tame the beast. Here’s how I did it.  I’ve taught this simple sorting routine to countless people and now you too can stop the madness!

DO NOT start your business day working with emails!!

It’s very easy to get stuck in “email mode” and before you know it, the whole morning will have disappeared.

I first look at emails at 11.30 each morning. The amount of work I get done in the hours before this is staggering.

DO NOT let your email account control your attention !!

Sort emails once a day and only deal with those you have marked for your immediate attention. This means you will not be checking on emails every half an hour or worse still leaving your email account open to be reminded every time a new email comes in.

Follow this process exactly…

# 1: Your aim is to keep your inbox as empty as possible. This is what you see first when you open your email account so it’s important that its not bulging with 16000 emails waiting for your attention. By doing this you will eliminate unnecessary stress and anxiety for yourself.

#2: Create four folders: Today, This Week, Holding, Filed. If you use one account for both business and personal mail then I suggest you do this separately for business and personal emails.

#3: I use Gmail but you can do this using most other email clients. Once a day at a time that suits you go through all the emails in your inbox. Select all those you know you MUST usually deal with on the day of arrival. Set up a filter or forwarding option so that these can be be moved to your Today folder and in future will do so automatically without going to your inbox first.

#4: Next select all the emails you don’t have to deal with on the day of arrival but imagine you might want to look at during the current week. Set up a filter or forwarding option so that these can be be moved to your This Week folder and in future will do so automatically without going to your inbox first.

#5: Next select those emails you’re not that sure about and set up a filter or forwarding option so that these can be be moved to your Holding folder and in future will do so automatically without going to your inbox first.

#6: Finally look at everything else that’s left, unsubscribe from any missed redundant email lists and delete the lot.

#7: Repeat this process every day and then only deal with your Today folder for the day. This folder must be empty at the start of the next day. All emails you need to keep for reference can be moved to your Filed folder.

I don’t keep lots of different folders for filed emails because in Gmail you can search for emails by name in the one folder. If you definitely can’t deal with an email in the Today folder on the day, you can move it to This Week before retiring for the day.

#8: When do you deal with the other emails? All those in This Week MUST be read and dealt with or deleted before the next week starts so that on Monday you start with an empty folder.

If you think you may still need something you can move it to the Holding folder but make sure This Week is empty by Monday.

You can read and deal with anything from the Holding folder if and when you find time but this folder only has a calendar month’s life  which means on the last day of the month, everything in the Holding folder is deleted regardless. If you have not got around to reading something within a month it can’t be worth your time anyway.

If there is one specific area of your network marketing Internet business that needs constant de-cluttering it’s your email account. While emails are essential to what we do, you MUST be their master not the other way around.

The above process works like a dream if you set it up correctly and work the system diligently.

I’d love to hear your comments on this topic so please leave me a comment and please also share this post with your followers. Thank you.

Be Happy!

Image courtesy of Ramberg Medial Images on Flickr