I knew I had a lot of emails – who doesn’t? – but this came as a total surprise. Who knew you could actually run out of storage?! Gmail basically staged an inbox intervention and if I didn’t deal with it, I would never receive another email again (which, to be honest, sounded kind of amazing…)

As tempted as I was to just say screw it and start over, I knew that wasn’t an option; I had to create a system to deal with it, otherwise I’d lose my sanity.

Starting my own business – aka juggling a MILLION things – has forced me to develop hacks to work smarter and not just harder. I’ve learned a ton over the last two years that I’d love to share it with you.

Here are 10 suggestions on how to deal with your Infinite Inbox:

• Unsubscribe from emails you don’t want.

• Create labels + filters to easily find what you’re looking for.

• Group emails by urgency; for example, Today, This Week, This Month.

• As soon as you read and respond to an email, delete or archive it.

• Set up a reminder system like Boomerang so emails don’t fall through the cracks.

• Build in time-savers like custom shortcuts and canned responses.

• Will it take more than 3 sentences to respond? You might want to schedule a call instead.

• Create an email ritual where you check your inbox at certain times throughout the day. Light a candle and play nice music.

• Hide your inbox until you’re ready to look at it.

• Don’t be afraid of putting up an away message. You may inspire others to do the same!

If even looking at your email makes you hyperventilate, you may want to forward everything to a new address so at least your inbox looks empty 🙂

Now go get paid.

x Claire