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Our inboxes are overflowing and overwhelming. The sheer number of emails and the constant notifications can make it hard to focus. It feels like there’s no way to keep up, and we end up stressed, dreading what’s waiting for us.
The problem isn’t the emails themselves – it’s the lack of a system to manage and prioritise them. But by setting up a triage system and creating simple rules, we can stop emails from running our lives.
Start by checking emails only when you have time to act on them. Deal with anything that takes less than two minutes immediately. For the rest, there are 6 folders you can create, which will help you keep everything manageable:
- Action (urgent)
- Action
- Read later
- Safe place
- Finance
- Archive
It’s easy to feel out-of-control when our inbox is full and the unread badge is glaring at us. Important emails get lost in the chaos, our tasks pile up, and our stress levels rise. But there’s plenty we can do to regain control.
The first thing to do? Turn off those email notifications!
Show links
More episodes of You Are Not a Frog:
- How to Be REALLY Productive… Without Losing the Plot – Episode 190, with Graham Allcott
- Does the Usual Productivity Advice Work for People Seeing Patients? – Episode 241
- How to Have More Impact with Less Effort – Episode 159
Reasons to listen
- For practical strategies to manage email overwhelm and maintain control over your inbox
- To discover how to set up an effective email triage system with six essential folders
- To reduce stress by managing tasks outside of your email and limiting interruptions
Episode highlights
Your email is like an emergency room
Dealing with clinical emails
Triage your emails
The 6 email folders you need
Automatic responses
Generate fewer emails
Avoid using email as your task list
Check your emails less
Common pitfalls and mistakes
You don’t have to respond to everything
Get Your Time Back email templates
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Rachel: In all our training on time management and overwhelm, one of the biggest things that people say causes them to feel stressed under pressure and overwhelmed is their inbox, the sheer volume of stuff that’s in there. So I wanna do a quick dip today talking about just why we get so overwhelmed by our inbox and how we get out of it. [00:00:20] Rachel: This is a You Are Not a Frog quick dip, a tiny taster of the kinds of things we talk about on our full podcast episodes. I’ve chosen today’s topic to give you…
