You know that feeling. You log onto your work computer, coffee in hand, open your inbox, and see the loading symbol. You’re about to be hit by a deluge of emails.
It’s the inbox paralysis that threatens to overwhelm you. But never fear. The Luchadora Litigator is here to exorcise those email demons and help you get your inbox back under control so you’re ready to face the day.
1. Read Everything (Yes, Everything)
“F**k off! My inbox is out of control and now you’re expecting me to read every email that comes in?! You must be delusional!“
No, I’m not delusional. When I say “read,” I mean give everything a quick glance to check for two things:
- Relevance: Is this actually for you, or is it a project update from Madagascar for a client you’ve never heard of? If so, delete it.
- Priority: Can it wait, or is it an email from a client saying their building is on fire?
Those two things are the key to getting your inbox under control.
2. Build Your Arena
This looks different for everyone. Some people like automatic rules that filter everything by sender or subject, and put it into sub-folders automatically. I don’t. I prefer to read everything in my master inbox and then assign emails to sub-folders myself.
Rules probably work best if you’re fighting thousands of emails a day. But this doesn’t mean you get to ignore Step 1. There’s no point having a neat inbox if you have no idea what’s in all those pretty sub-folders.
I have sub-folders for clients, projects, BD initiatives, and personal work-related things (like appraisals or parking), but you might prefer a different system: maybe you want to categorise by work types, work urgency, or maybe you code name work according to how much it irritates you (“Fussy Sh***” or “Has a +8 Golf Handicap”). The key is to find a categorising system that works for you and implement it.
3. Be a Ruthless Bouncer to your Inbox
If you’re in a corporate environment, you can’t agonise over every email. A quick skim should be enough to know if it concerns you. If it doesn’t, hit that delete button.
- Work update on finance processes? Read it and file it, or delete it if it’s not relevant to what you’re doing.
- Email on the work’s latest mental health initiative? Read it, and decide if it’s useful to you. If you’d rather rip off your arms than sample the office yoga, delete that email and don’t look back.
- An email from a client that just says “Speak soon. BR“? Delete it.
- An email highlighting a moderate difficulty on a project? That goes in a sub-folder to deal with later.
If in any doubt on the importance of the email, retain and file it. But this should be the exception, not the rule, otherwise everything will end up in this category.
4. Find and Fight the Fires
Once you’ve sorted the wheat from the chaff, you can see which bits of wheat are screaming and on fire (can you see there’s a theme here?).
First, work out what needs doing today. Then work out what needs doing in the next 24-48 hours or what needs doing this week and ultimately which emails can wait.
My own preference is to mark out the urgent emails by flagging them in my main inbox rather than moving them. I find it easier to find the emails when they have a red flag and a red background, but that might set your teeth on edge, in which case again find a system that works for you to help you set and remember your priorities. That might be pushing the email into your sub-folders but marking them as unread so you can quickly skim your sub-folders for actions.
5. Secure Your Action Items
Linked to your to-do list (stay tuned for another blog post all about managing to-do lists), you need a system to ensure the emails that need dealing with eventually, but not immediately, don’t get neglected.
My preference is a written to-do list on my ReMarkable (basically an electric notepad but without the distractions of your average tablet/iPad), but you might prefer OneNote, Lupl, an actual notebook or even post-it notes. Be sure to write down the action, who is doing it (if delegated), and the date it’s due.
6. Finish the Job (aka Execute that Finishing Move)
This is key: once you’ve dealt with an email, it needs to be moved on.
For me, this means the email flag comes off and it gets gracefully retired from my main inbox to a sub-folder. If your emails are already in a sub-folder, just remove the flag so it can fall back into obscurity.
Look through your flagged emails at the end of the day to see what can be dispatched. This is important, otherwise your carefully curated system just becomes another mess of flagged items with no sense of what’s actually done.
Of course the beauty of this is that even if you think an action is done only for it to return like a bad smell (like every good villain in a sequel movie), you can simply bring that email back with a flag or a move to the main inbox. And this can be repeated for as many sequels as your boss or client thinks necessary.
7. Sanitise Your Folders (The Annual Purge)
As a lawyer, I find it hard to give up documents. At one point my inbox had so many sub-folders that it became difficult to find the one I needed.
That’s why now, about once a year (often a cathartic action to take in the New Year), I do a cull of folders.
Find out what your company’s document retention policy is and decide where you sit on the spectrum from “save everything” to “burn it down”. All law firms have strong policies, so I can be ruthless. If I haven’t touched a project in 6-12 months, the sub-folder in my own inbox is going in the virtual bin, safe in the knowledge that IT can safely retrieve everything with a panicked phone call from moi.
If you’re self-employed or your company doesn’t have a specific retention policy, you might consider creating an “Archive” folder and dumping old sub-folders in there. That way at least you have the ability to resurrect those emails when an old villain comes knocking.
Takedown Checklist
- Triage Everything: Skim-read every email so you have a sense of its relevance (or not).
- Build Your Arena: Set up your inbox with folders, categories, or rules.
- Be Ruthless: Use that delete button to the max.
- Firefight: Flag and tackle the burning emails first.
- Log Your Actions: Note all follow-ups from the emails you keep to deal with later.
- Finish the Job: Once actioned, archive or delete the email.
- Purge Your Folders: Periodically sanitise your sub-folders.
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