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Finally sorting out your inbox.
I am not good at managing my emails. They all just sit there in a disorganized blob, ever increasing like the “Fatbergs” plaguing London’s sewer systems — massive clumps of congealed grease, used diapers and wet wipes clogging up the works and slowly, inevitably increasing in size, stench and oiliness.
I have a better handle on the work emails, mostly because every now and then an administrative assistant needs to access my inbox and I am so embarrassed about my inbox Fatberg that I frantically delete and file to avoid the shame of their kind but confused questions about my “organizational system”.
My personal emails, however, have been a different story. There the Fatberg has swelled to epic proportions — just a giant undifferentiated mass of updates from the yoga studio I stopped attending pre-Pandemic, frantic promises of 40% discounts from The Gap and every now and then an important email from my family, all wrapped in an oleaginious film of shame and helplessness.
This summer, I don’t know what shifted, but I was energized. I took control. I watched YouTube videos, I read advice and I implemented a plan, achieving actual success.
I have Gmail, so I did a lot of the tips and tricks in this article. Presumably whatever email service you have will do something similar.
Still, the single best thing I did in my quest to break up my email fatberg was to discover and implement the “Skip the Inbox” function when I filtered emails. Clicking on the little option in all filtering means that the emails only go to the place I labelled them and when something shows up in my actual inbox, I know that it’s something new that I haven’t yet characterized. I can give that thing all the attention it deserves, figure out which label it should now live under, and if it’s a sneaky piece of the fatberg (the digital equivalent to a soiled diaper or a wet wipe) I can blast it into DELETED oblivion and sail away on the clear waters of my email Thames worry free (it’s possible my Fatberg analogy got a little laboured there, but you catch my drift… “Skip the Inbox” was a game changer for me!)
Do you have a brilliant organizational strategy/email hack? Tell me about it in the comments below!
Article Roundup!
I’m a doctor, this why I am prescribe walking to my patients
Eight things we do that really confuse our dogs
Everything got better once I stopped cooking for my family
When the Big One Hits, an e-Bike is your ticket to safety
11 Simple Ways to Improve your memory
The Asteroid in Spring Hypothesis: Dueling paleontologists
How to Start Assuming the Best in People
The Heiress at Harvard who helped revolutionize murder investigations
The 34 Most Anticipated TV shows of the Fall
The Paternal Urge to Toss Your baby
100 Must Read Classics — I’ve read 54 of these — how many did you get?
Book Stuff
I had big plans to attend this, but then realized I was foolishly double-booked. Argh! Anyway, you guys should all go. It’s in an adorable village and there’s a super-fun, lowkey vibe.
I had fun at Indigo Rideau signing books and eavesdropping on teens (from what I uncovered it’s all about Manga and fairies in dysfunctional relationships)
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Congrats on wrangling your email inbox! I'm relentlessly on top of mine in a way that's kind of unsettling. If I have more than 10 emails in the inbox, I get anxious. I'm a ruthless deleter and have extensive folders for filing after reading... and I kinda use my inbox as a to-do list for things I need to follow up on. The flood is never-ending.
I've only read 19 of the classics on that list, but a handful of them (Middlemarch!) are on my TBR.
THANK you Amy for your shout-out (and a big one at that) to the Knowlton Literary Festival ❣️ox We are all huge fans of your writing!