How to Empty Your Inbox in 5 Minutes or Less

Here's a foolproof way to empty your email inbox (maybe for the first time ever!) in 5 minutes or less

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Webmail
• or Email Client

1. Open Email: Login to your webmail or open your email client. Please see resources below for the webmail and email clients for which this method works best

2. Get rid of spam: Select all the email messages that are spam and hit the spam button (depending on what program you are using you may have to do this multiple times)

3. Delete unneeded messages: Go through your messages again and select all the ones that are no longer relevant (just like you would old voicemails). Then hit the delete button.

4. Mark Mission Critical: Go through your emails again and select all the ones that you absolutely need to take action on - these are the ones that are mission critical only (we'll get to the maybe action items next). Pick the flag for follow up option (or star messages option depending on your email program).
   Archive these messages (Create an Archive folder if it doesn't exist and have them moved there)

5. Mark the Might Act on: If your email program support multiple flags or labels then create the label for Might Act on. If not, then create a new folder called "Might Act On". Now, go through your emails again and select the ones that you might want to take action if you had time, but if you didn't you wouldn't be adversely affected. Now apply the flag you created (or apply the label or move to the folder, depending on your email program). If your program supports multiple flags or labels, then move all these messages to your Archive folder.

6. Save for Reference: As above, if you can create multiple flags or labels then create a Reference label. Else, create a folder for reference.
   Now, go through your messages again and select the ones you need to keep for reference. Then add the reference flag or

7. Clean up: Select the rest of the messages in your inbox. Now depending on if it makes you feel better to get rid of unneeded baggage or to keep just in case, either delete all of them or move them to your archive folder.

8. Verify Mission Critical Access: Verify that when you want to take action on those Mission Critical items you can just go to the Flagged for Follow up search folder (or starred items). If there isn't a search folder, then sort your archive by flagged.

9. Be Empty: Go back to your inbox. It's empty!! Be empty yourself. No need to act on anything right now. Everything is in its place when you are ready..

Tips & Warnings

• Follow the steps in order
• It's best to do this process every day, but even once a week is good.
• Get familiar with your email program. Read the instructions and watch the tutorials, as I can't explain every email program here.
• Make sure that your spam filter is set up so it will catch most of the spam for you
• If you have a few thousand emails to go through and it seems overwhelming, try to at least mark the one's that are mission critical and archive everything else.
• Don't let your email build up. It's easier to do this process with less emails
• It's easy to think that you'd like to act on something, but you need to distinguish between Mission Critical and Might act on, as otherwise you'll end up with tons of things to act on and feel just as overwhelmed.
• Make sure to utilize the work you've done: After your done feeling empty, go in and take care of the first message you've marked as Mission Critical

Resources

• David Allen's Getting Things Done
• Sally McGhee's Productivity Solutions
• Merlin Mann's 43 Folders Productivity Blog and Community
• Timothy Ferriss's 4 Hour Work Week
• Google's Gmail
• Yahoo's Email
• Microsoft's Outlook