A graphic of a mobile phone with the email icon showing 4538 emails waiting to be opened
Episode 48 – Taking control of your email

In this podcast, Lesley and Ingrid talk about how overwhelming email can be, how to take back control, manage it and organise it. Managing your email is an increasing part of our daily lives. They come into our inbox in droves and before we know it we have that little notification number staring at us with thousands of unread emails. We talk about how to clear the backlog, how to ensure you manage your email effectively and how to organise your emails efficiently.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter hub podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:26  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 48 of the declutter hub podcast. I'm Ingrid and I mostly, if you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, Lesley and I are talking about decluttering your email. Now, email is a big part of people's lives. And it's an area that needs attention and decluttering to in the same way as our physical space. And I probably I in my head, I see people that are listening to this podcast kind of shaking their head going, Oh, no. Oh, no, we're gonna talk about email I can't even think about even talk about it. So Lesley, what do you think?

Lesley  1:05  
Well, I love an email. I do. I spent like more or less 24/7 sitting behind my computer getting emails, I do a lot to delete an email. It's like deleting a to do, isn't it off your list and things like that. And so I do like to keep it under control. When it gets out of control. I feel out of control. But I do keep it generally by most people's standards. I'm reasonably good at sorting my emails out. But I also declutter emails for clients, which I apps we were just talking about this before we came on because you don't really do that to you. But I love nothing more than sitting and working on people and clients emails, I find it so satisfying to get to that end point. Because so many people have got so many emails and certain that that number, you know, that sits there on your phone telling you, isn't it? It's like a kind of yes, you have 3500 actions that you've not done today. I would, that would freak me out.

Ingrid  2:01  
Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. At the time when I was Abdo president and I got an average about 100 150 emails a day. Oh my gosh, it out. When I saw them all come in. And when the number in the inbox went over 100 I was like God.

Lesley  2:21  
I agree. I agree. There's something about that number 100, that just becomes much more overwhelming than 99. Somewhere in every in every way. But yeah. But I think it's something that we really need to tackle. And a lot of people have gone beyond the point of dealing with it and think that you can't bring it back in. And so it is worth investing the time at looking at your email to try and again, get control of that part of your life as well as your physical space, as we talked about. So that's what we're going to talk about today, isn't it?

Ingrid  2:49  
Yes, definitely. And I agree with you fully, it is very overwhelming to see a really massive number. And I think even I mean, three 3500 Seems like oh my gosh, t this panic, but I mean 17,000 I, I don't know if I could sleep.

Lesley  3:10  
I think we are unusual. We are unusual. We know that you know in the world, we like to keep things orderly in their little boxes and a notification number whether it's a whatsapp notification number of Facebook notification number and email notification was something to me, it's something that has not been actioned and that's the point.

Ingrid  3:26  
Yeah, definitely. So let's delve into that a little bit then. So I mean, I'm really glad I've got low numbers, I'm I'm must admit it. So what else can we want you to think about when we talk about the psychology of emails and the incredible high number because it's what you're saying? It almost feels like every number is something that we need to do, and we need to tackle. And so the higher numbers,

Lesley  3:58  
and it's something that we need to tackle, even if it's just to delete it, it's something that we need to do, it's an action that we need to take. And that's the way to think about it. Really, if we had 3000 jobs on our to do list are written to do list or what however we're doing our to do list, we would be, it would be terrible. But somehow there, there are lots and lots of people out there who like that email, just build up and build up. And it needs, you know, you need to sort of tackle it at source. And then you need to do a big call at some point. And there's different ways that you can do that. And we're going to talk about one or two of them. So many people have got different ways of managing emails, because that's part of productivity, time management, all those kinds of things. So it's really important to get a system that works well for you. So let's cut let's come clean shall wait. So how do you set up your email? So how many email accounts have you got? And how many emails have you got sitting in those accounts?

Ingrid  4:49  
So basically, what I did I have three different email inboxes so I have one for my private email, which has currently 11 And in them?

Lesley  5:01  
Yes, yes, very nice.

Ingrid  5:03  
I have an organised house, my business email, which has 34 things that I want to do or need an action or something. And for the declutter hub, our business, I have about 26 at the moment. So I have a total of about 71 emails, so over three different email books, so I'm feeling good. I'm feeling like, Okay, this feels manageable.

Lesley  5:28  
It does feel manageable. And the good thing is that you and I have got the same amount in the Declutter. One of us is not do more work than the other. So that's a good thing. I've got 24. In the declutter, I've got a 14, my clutter fairy account, and I am a little bit behind on doing things. To be fair, because I've been working this week until this point. So 14 my quarter fair rate, but there's a story to tell about that in a minute, which I'll tell you about. And I've got 20 in my private account, so it's not private, but you know, it's kind of domestic stuff. So if you know, the email that a personal Yeah, so that's it. So I've got about 85 Altogether, which actually, I'm really happy with, it's once it gets to that 100 number that it just gets a little bit. I don't know something about the number 100 Isn't there? That just freaks me out more than 99.

Ingrid  6:20  
So what's your story, then? What's your clutter? Fairy email?

Lesley  6:23  
Oh, oh, you know, I mean, we've all had those days, when our email some some how you know, it sits there quite happily doing anything, then through no fault of your own, and you have absolutely no idea why it all goes wrong. You're on the phone for hours and hours and hours trying to reset it up with your email provider or host or whatever. So that happened to me, took me ages got it all back, all of a sudden, I started noticing on my phone and on my computer, all my emails from a clutter fairy account from from months and months and months ago starting to re upload. So all the ones that are deleted, or the ones that are filed away into folders and things or start re uploading back into my account, I had 7000 emails in my clutter fairy account on my phone are downloading another 250 downloading them. But the problem was, you know, as you and I kind of alluded to, what we do is we keep our email accounts almost as to do lists, which we'll talk about a little bit more later. And so what got mixed up was my emails got mixed up with my inbox, the ones that are reuploaded. Were in with the inbox action ones. And I couldn't work out which one was which. So I had to make a guess as to what was I had to look through the most recent ones, and try and find the one but you know, I've still got things sitting in my inbox maybe from six months ago that I've not done yet. And there are older ones that I've just not got around to don't don't judge me harshly. But there are things that sometimes you know, you're going to come back to Yeah. So I had to the only way I could do it was delete the whole lot and hope for the best. And there are there have been casualties. There's a couple of things this week, isn't there? Yeah. You. I needed to resend me that thread because I'm like, oh, where's it gone? And I thought it must have gone with the call with the big call. So yeah, but the stress that I felt with having that that 7000 sitting in my inbox, I was like this is so yeah, I had that little number for a few days last week, for the first time and it stressed me out. So So yeah, so we are talking about email decluttering. Today,

Ingrid  8:32  
I think it's really important to get that number under control. And also I think if you have a lot of emails come in, especially if you've got lots of newsletters and look at these latest products. Look at and denude latest dresses or the shoes or look at these holidays and all of those newsletters as we get. We get sucked into buying stuff as well. Because we think oh, we just have a little look what's new in the shops or oh, we have a look. Oh, my favourite shop has got a sale going on. And before we know it, we're completely sidetracked of what we're doing. And we're buying things online.

Lesley  9:07  
I mean, I am very, very hardline about this, I have to say with me and I Oh, it's also something that I try and encourage my clients to do. Because we are all suckers for temptation, aren't we? You know, something says there's a 70% off sale, something draws us into that. But actually we should only buy when we need, you know, and yes, you may miss some really exceptional sales. But if you don't need it, it's 70% off. It's not you know, it's just adding to the to the physical clutter than in our homes as well. So I have you know, even if I give my email to somebody when I get a receipt or something all of a sudden they get a newsletter and, and let's face it GDPR which came in last year, which we're all familiar with, because we all had to sign those disclaimers to all the companies. We had to sign to say we agreed that's really helped but nevertheless we are still getting follow up emails from things because now have the kind of digital receipt is becoming more common, isn't it? Do you want an email receipt rather than a physical receipt? Which is a good thing? Because again, you know, it's easier to manage isn't it? If you've got you got lose it then do you if you if you've got a digital receipt, but I will always unsubscribe, you know, I, every day, I'm unsubscribing. You know, there's definitely one unsubscribe every single day that goes on in my email. And so consequently, I have very little of that kind of stuff coming into my account, don't need it, don't want it. If I want to go out and buy something, I'll go go and buy it. Or I'll go online and find it when I want it and not when someone's telling me to buy. And I think that's really, really critical. It's the same thing with the magazines that come through the physical magazines that come into people's houses as well. Just temptation, US temptation after temptation. And when we work with people with with too much clutter, obviously. And that's something that we see all the time, isn't it, I see a colossal amount of catalogues coming through into people's houses as well. And those are all things get rid of those, so that it takes that temptation away. And you're not buying things that you don't need.

Ingrid  11:04  
Yeah, yeah. Excellent point. So how can we then start with a decluttering of them? I mean, of course, we've mentioned the lead an email, but let's let's delve into that a little bit deeper. Do you sit down? Like once a day, delete it all in one go? Or do you like I declutter of so I declutter my emails, I regularly check my email. And immediately if I see emails that I don't want, I delete them there and then do you. So I,

Lesley  11:33  
I do that as I go. So if things come in, I'll just delete them straightaway. A lot of times if there are things not so much now, because I've unsubscribed. But when that when when I was getting things, you know, marketing material, I might even delete it before I've even read it. You know, if I know that it's something that I'm not interested in, so I don't even go in and read it. So I think there's definitely a declutter as you go, I think that's a rule of thumb. It's kind of almost like a one in one out policy that we have, you know, for physical stuff, just get that part of you as part of your routines, you know, make sure that you are just deleting stuff as it comes in, and then it's manageable at the source, isn't it rather than it building up and building up? Same with the physical declutter is exactly the same, you know, all we're doing is working on a computer, and employing the same tax it tactics that we do when we're doing physical decluttering. or managing the home and managing what's coming in and what's going out. So definitely declutter as you go is going to be a big thing, don't let it build up, don't skip things over just go through. It's so quick, isn't it to declutter stuff that you don't need, or to give a cursory glance over something and just saying, don't need that delete, gone, you know, gone out of your life, thankfully. Yeah.

Ingrid  12:40  
And I think also, every day, just try to do one or two unsubscribes. You know, if you if you don't feel like, oh, man, I've got so many. Well, let's start with one or two a day, but unsubscribing. So when you're going through your phone, and you're deleting this, immediately, I'm going to do one a day, every time I pop into my phone to delete some emails, let me unsubscribe on one of them. So then you stop the flow from coming in, and you nip it in the bud at the source. And you don't have to deal with it again later.

Lesley  13:10  
Exactly, exactly. That's definitely the way to do it. And I wanted to talk a little bit more about how when I'm working with clients, how we the process that we go through, if people have got huge numbers. So let's say we're talking 1000s here that needs to be deleted, and you're not going to you cannot go through those individually. So what you've got to do is you've got to get to a system where you can multi delete, if that makes sense, or Bulk Delete. And so the way that I do it with my clients is I'll go through the inbox, I'll find something that looks like marketing material, or looks like something that we're not going to want to keep, I will find that email, copy and paste the email that has been sent from into the search bar of my email account. And what will happen then is that all of the emails from that person or that account will come up. And then you can literally multi select and delete. But there's one thing that I do do before I'm multi selecting Delete, which is unsubscribe. So if it's something that I don't want, so basically to go through just to go through that again, because I know it's technical and so on. But I would find the email in my inbox, copy up and copy the email address into the search bar in my email account. At that point, all of the emails will come up. I will do a quick unsubscribe at that point so that I've not got a subscription anymore, so it's not going to come in in the future. And then I will Bulk Delete all of those emails. Does that make sense? Is that what you would do as well? Ingrid

Ingrid  14:41  
Yeah. Because also I think that is really helpful because that way you can clear a backlog. So if so if it's a from today, so if if you do have three and a half 1000 emails in your inbox, you can start today on which which unsubscribing and doing Your daily delete, but you still want to clear that backlog. So this is a really good tactic to clear this backlog, but also, again, prevent stuff from coming in. So don't just delete stuff, actually unsubscribe from that email. So it doesn't come in in the first place.

Lesley  15:15  
Yeah, exactly. So this is kind of a two pronged attack to attack really, isn't it? And I find it really, you know, so what will happen is that you'll get 70 or 80 emails coming up that you can delete in one go, you still, you know, if you've still got 1000s, you're still going to be working on it for a long time. This is not a quick job. If you've got 1000s and 1000s of email, this is something that's going to take hours and hours potentially over days. Yeah, to get through. But let me tell you, it is very rewarding, very satisfying. And it makes you feel in control. And that's what this is all about. You know, you need to get that in control. So that you feel well, you know, you feel like you're on top of things, it's really important.

Ingrid  15:55  
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I am lucky enough that I have an email on my phone as well. So I do a lot of deleting on the go. And then I don't have to do it on my computer. Because when I delete it from my phone in the middle, it gets taken off my computer as well. And they sync with each other. Do you do the same? Lesley?

Lesley  16:17  
Yeah, I do. I've just changed actually, which might be one of the reasons why I messed up various stuff. So without getting too technical, anybody that set up an email on an email account, will no or may know that there are two types of account that you can have, you can have an IMAP account and a POP account. So without going into too much technical detail. An IMAP account is the type of account where if you delete it from your phone, it will automatically delete it from the server at the same time. And a POP account means that it only deletes it from the local device. Does that make sense? Yeah, so an IMAP account will delete it from both devices or all devices, if you've got one and on iPad, or tablet or on a laptop, etc. And a POP account will only delete it at that local device. Don't get don't come back to me if I've got that completely wrong, because I'm not very ticket. But that is my basic understanding of the difference between an IMAP account and a POP account. So if you feel cut, you know I'm going to delete it off my phone, I'm going to have to delete it off my desktop when I get home. And that's really annoying. Go in and try and set it up as the different type of accounts and it will do it for you. So because obviously, that's two actions that you have to take if you've got a POP account, which is the one that only deletes it from your local device. That's to that you've got to delete it from such two actions, isn't it rather than one? Yeah.

Ingrid  17:38  
Yeah, I like I like being efficient that I want to delete it once.

Lesley  17:42  
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think to be fair, I think GDPR because massively helps, doesn't it because you know, people are not allowed to send us on solicit in principle, then people are not allowed to send unsolicited mail anymore. I know we've got a lot of American listeners where GDPR is not a thing. So let's not going to it, really, but it basically means that we have more control in the EU over what kind of emails we are getting. So most of the unsolicited mail that I get at the moment is coming in from the States and Canada, because that their GDPR rules are not enforced have that so it's different, isn't it? And then you've got these things where you unsubscribe to things and then they sell your email account on to other people. So it's not always straightforward. So you can unsubscribe, but you may then get get sold on to another mailing list. And that's when you get this kind of crazy spam that comes in. It's a tough one, isn't it? But I even though I know that some sometimes when you unsubscribe, I am going to get more. I'm happy to just keep on going and keep on subscribing until I start until it stops. And I do find that absolutely works for me.

Ingrid  18:48  
Yeah, it whittles it down. And the most important thing, so Okay, so we've kind of talked about the psychology behind having really high email numbers, we talked about decluttering. And what we can do to stem the flow of stuff coming in. But then of course, ours is stuff that we want to keep I know some people are absolutely ruthless. And once they've done it, they delete it completely. But I have some folders and things like that, because I want to be able to find some things back and I know you can just type it in the search bar and everything comes up but I like my folder system because I'm quite orderly with where I put stuff. So have you got folders in your in your in your inbox?

Lesley  19:29  
What do you think, Ingrid? Are you really asking me that question? Of course I have folders. I'm a professional organiser. I've just got oh, here's my inbox with 75,000 emails from the Yes. Yes, I have folders. And I have Yeah, I have a folder structure. I try and keep it simple. Have different folder structures, obviously for my different businesses of my personal stuff. Yeah, so I do use folders. But as you say, for the most part But I will use the search bar. That's the nice thing about it, you've got an inbuilt search system, haven't you to find something in email, which is brilliant. And that's why a lot of people say, Well, I don't need any folders. But I think for me, I still want that sort of security of knowing that I can find something within a folder. And I can't remember exactly who sent it, or I can't remember when it was sent or, you know, whatever search criteria you use, sometimes it doesn't work for you. So I always need that backup, I keep, I only keep things that I definitely need to keep them. It was interesting, actually, because just jumping back to the decluttering, Nathan, my youngest son who's 16. And he's obviously not done anything with these emails over the last, however long and he's just let them sit there and sit there and sit there. So he's sitting there with a sort of, I don't think he's sitting there with 6000 emails, notification on read, because I think he has read them, but he just hasn't deleted them. And so he said to me, I just want to, because he started doing a little bit of work for me now. So all of a sudden, he realises that he needs some kind of organisational system in place for his emails, and he said, Do you think I can delete everything? Now I look at his life and think, okay, he's 16? Is there going to be anything critical on there? And can he just delete, so we've gone through the option of deleting everything and starting from scratch for him, because I don't think there's going to be anything critical in there for a six year old, he's not got holiday bookings, he's not, you know, those are the kinds of things that we've got in there things that are important that we need to pull back, especially when we're running businesses as well, we could never do that. But yeah, so he's gone for the Delete 7000 emails all in one go option. So which is interesting, going back to folders, what I try and do is I try and mirror my filing system, my actual physical filing system with my email folders. And so I have the same categories within my within my filing system. Okay, let's say it's financial, etc, etc. Obviously, there are going to be certain folders in the email that are not in your physical filing system, and vice versa. For the most part, I try to mirror it. So it makes sense. Yeah,

Ingrid  22:01  
yeah, I've got the same I've got a travel and tickets folder. And I've got a thing for purchases that I've done online. But I've also got one for the kids. But I've had separate ones for the school because they are part of some clubs and things that I want to find in their, in their folder, but I want to have a separate one for the schools, because it's just easier to find things back. It's gonna be very satisfying, because my daughter is going to leave primary school soon. So I think you can actually delete the whole folder from the primary school. And that feels a bit like, who made radical? I love decluttering. But

Lesley  22:34  
don't go too quick. Give yourself a week, at least a transitional period. You don't need to delete it on the last day of school.

Ingrid  22:42  
So do you ever go through your folders and delete stuff? From there, Lesley? Oh, I should do a bit more work on that. My husband says I keep far too many emails. He's like, why have you got so many emails and all your folders?

Lesley  22:56  
I think it's an interesting one. Because again, GDPR made us do that really for our clients? So that client data, isn't it? So we're not allowed to keep things after a certain number of years about our clients. So we had to do that. But that was more of a date thing. So yes, and I do find it very satisfying when one chapter of your life closes, and you can delete things, maybe wants to say goodbye to that chapter that is. So yeah, yes or no, do I do it? Well, no, for me, the most important thing is keeping my inbox under control. And the folders can sit there and waits for a rainy day when that rainy day comes. And there are times that I've been more or more orderly with that. So but it's not absolutely critical. As long as it's in a folder and it's sitting there, it's not going to cause major, major problems. But if it's sitting in your inbox, it potentially is because it's just demonstrating a lack of control.

Ingrid  23:47  
Yeah, yeah. Good point. So then I've got a next question for you. Do you use your inbox as a To Do lists? I mean, we touched upon it briefly. But do you do that? I do.

Lesley  23:59  
And I know there are so many different ways of managing email and so many different ways that people work with email. But that's always something that's, you know, a lot of people hate that system and think that you shouldn't do that. But it's always worked for me. And so basically, I go through my emails, and if it still needs some kind of action, I will leave it sitting in my inbox. And that's what I do. So I've got, as I mentioned before, I've got different ones for my two different businesses. And I've got a personal one. And so I know then that I'm going to and what I do every day, I'll go through pretty much the whole inbox every time. There's only 4050 emails in there, Max. And so I'll go through and I can keep tabs on what I've done and what I've not done. You know, I kind of flit around that I might take things you know, if I want to do something on that day, I might take it, take a note of it and put it on my written to do list, you know, things like that. And there are going to be things that are going to take a while and said things will sit there for six months before you get around to actually in them. They're just things you like to do. But as soon as they disappear into an archive to say With physical file, and as soon as you file something away, you're not going to action that because you'll forget about it. Yeah, you know, this kind of proactive versus reactive thing, and I need to be reactive, I need to be reactive to what's sitting in my physical intro, I need to be reactive to what's sitting in my digital intro. So that's the way my mind works. And it's always worked for me.

Ingrid  25:21  
It's interesting, because I'm exactly the same. So I use my all my three inboxes, as to do lists. And I'm like you there is an email in there for a long time. But I know that I'm going to want to do something with that. And I know as soon as a follow the way, it's gone from my brain. So I want to have in my inbox, the stuff that I need to do something with action it or read it or reply to it, or contact people. And then once that's done, then I follow the way or I delete it. And for me, that works really, really well, because I don't see the point in getting an email and putting it on a digital to do list for me to then do because it's already on the list. It's in my inbox. So I'm saying that's interesting.

Lesley  26:05  
But it depends, you know, so many people learn and manage things in different way. So but that's a whole nother podcast about time management and productivity and the way that we work and so on. So what we're focusing on here is just basic decluttering. And organising. We're not talking about the whys and wherefores of how we do it. But we just thought we'd mentioned you and I both do. And I've always done, you know, and the bottom line is, if it works for you do I think I'm productive? Reasonably? I think I could be better. Absolutely. But I'm sure most people out there are the same. But it's a system that works for me that makes me feel in control. Yeah, some days. Some days I get it better than others. Of course I do. Some days it feels a little bit out of control, if you get a big and you know, if you and I are both working from home on the declutter hub, all of a sudden, that email number is going to rise by 50. Because we're going back and forth, you know, yeah. And so, you know, it sort of depends, you know, things, you know, take out Facebook notifications, you know, people have Facebook notifications coming on the Facebook app, and and coming into their actual emails to say, Oh, you've got a notification on your Facebook or, you know, things like those are the kinds of things that can go currently. Yeah, so

Ingrid  27:10  
yeah. So can we talk about spam filters for a moment, because we do get spam, thank goodness, I've got quite a good security system on the computer. But in still, I get spam. And it gets into your spam folder. And I nearly checked it every day. So I look at a click on my spam. So when I'm behind, not really on my phone. But when I'm at home, behind my desktop, I look at the spam and I there and then look at all of them. And 99.9%, it is spam. And I can just delete it. But every once in a while that is an email thing. Oh, that should be in my inbox. And I can move it into my inbox and then it becomes something that I need to action. Do you look at your spam filters?

Lesley  27:54  
I do I look at my so I look at my spam. Probably. I'm quite happy with the way that my computer text spam out if I'm honest, there's very little in there that actually isn't spam is yeah, get that the right way around very little in there that isn't actually spam. So yeah, I can go in, I can delete it. So I don't get random emails coming in. That should be my inbox. But I think I don't know technically, but I know years ago, I've not really changed it for ages. But I think you can moderate and you can change the settings on your spam filters on your email. So you can go for kind of low spam filter, medium spam filter, or a high spam filter. I think most are set automatically to medium. But you can fiddle around with those. So if you feel that your spam filters are not doing what they need to do, and there's things that are in there that shouldn't be in there or not in there, you're getting too much spam in your inbox, or you're getting some things in your spam folder that should be in your inbox. Maybe it's time to look at those spam filters and mechanism amendments and setting. Yeah, depending on what email system, yes, and it's worth

Ingrid  28:55  
investigating. But again, then you tackle it at the source instead of constantly just firefighting. Take a moment to figure out why am I getting so much spam? Look at that, and then hopefully it will make it better for the future. It's an investment of time as well, isn't it? Exactly, because

Lesley  29:13  
some of that spam you don't want to see anywhere, you know, a lot of the Spam is not nice stuff. You know, I mean, it's we don't want to be seen that kind of thing, either. So it's nice to get it out of you out of your life as well. So that was something I don't know, the technical technical technicalities of it, but um, please take a look and work out for yourself. Yeah, yeah. Google Search should sort that out. Really? Yeah.

Ingrid  29:35  
Do you use smart folders? So when emails go into certain folders, do you have kind of forever to set up for email that comes in or does everything come into your inbox?

Lesley  29:47  
Everything comes into my inbox. I can understand you know, this is this is where different people work in different ways. If people want to sort of come part compartmentalise a little bit more. And this is going to very much depend on the job that you do. And I'm sure domestically, you probably don't need to use Smart Folders. But when you're working there can be quite helpful. So just to explain that smart folders is a kind of filter set on your email, where the email system will filter something out and put it straight into a folder and bypass your inbox. That's my understanding of it. And so, you know, that could be marketing emails, or if you wanted to do this separately and not allow that to impact on your day, you could do something like that. So yes, smartphone has definitely worked for some people. But as we've we've talked about, we'd like to see everything in our inbox. And that's the way that our minds work. And that's the way that we do our work.

Ingrid  30:37  
Yep. Same goes for me actually, for to read folders, I don't have a to read folder. I just keep it in my inbox, there's something I'm seeing that I want to read, I keep it in my inbox. And then when I've got the time, I'll read it, and then it either gets deleted or filed away. But I know there are people out there who used to read folders, so maybe should have newsletters or shouldn't think so really enjoy anyone to read the email that goes into that separate folder, so that it doesn't clutter up their inbox. Yeah,

Lesley  31:06  
I mean, I, I'm with you, because I don't get much of that type of stuff anyway, to relate, you know, kind of documents and things. But I've got a client that we were working on productivity and time management with her. And she's got to a stage where she's she was struggling to read getting these really helps in the sort of medical legal world, she was getting these huge documents that she knew that she had to read at some point, not documents for work, but articles, then I guess that she wanted to read to keep it to keep abreast of what was going on. But she hadn't allocated time in a week. And so what we did was we put everything into a to read folder, and then she allocated an hour each week to actually go through and read those kinds of things. And that works really well for her. But her email and the management of her system is very complex. And, and her time management productivity to the to the minute. And so she's the way that she does things is quite complex. And but that works for her, you know, and I'm sure there's lots of people, you know, I'd love to know, you know, if anybody wants to comment on this, I'd love to know what people are doing differently. Because sometimes you get stuck in your own little world, don't you of doing things. And there may be better ways. I've tried different things to be honest with you. I've tried, you know, apps and different things. And I've always come back to my system that I feel comfortable with, you know, it may not be the most productive in the world, but it works for me. And that's the most important thing.

Ingrid  32:20  
Yeah, I think it's most of it as long as you feel in control of your email and have your inbox that gives you a calmness and that you know that you're on top of things. And for the people out there who have 70,000 emails in their inbox. It's okay, this is something you can do. It might not be done in an afternoon, but it is something you can get control back over. And it's just a matter of setting aside some time starting with the unsubscribing. Starting from now, today, now on deleting daily, what comes in and unsubscribing and then allocating time to sort through that backlog. And you know, you will get through it. It just depends on how complex your email is and how much time you allocate to it. But if it's important to you, and if you feel that you're really stressed out by the immense number in your inbox, then it's time to start tackling that and get back control over your your email. Exactly. So do we want to share some last top tips with our listeners? Lesley?

Lesley  33:26  
I think we do. I think we do too.

Ingrid  33:29  
First of all, I actually, my husband does something that I had never done. But he it works really well for him, he actually set up a separate Yahoo account for all those leaves your email address here, sign up here, do this, that or the other. And then he uses his Yahoo accounts, he doesn't use his Gmail account, which is his normal account. But he uses a separate one for all those, fill in your email, leave your email address. And it's so it doesn't even end up in his email. And every once in a while he checks his Yahoo Yahoo account and can delete like 99%. But that way he feels it doesn't clutter up. I thought that was really clever. So

Lesley  34:06  
I think a lot of people do that, you know, use it use an alternative email address for marketing material. So it takes out so it's different. So I'm kind of, as I said at the beginning, I'm quite hardline in terms of unsubscribe, I don't even want to see that. But if you do feel that you do potentially want to see it because you do like to go and shop and you do like to use sales and things like that, then that's a good sort of second way of doing things, isn't it where you're diverting something to something, you manage it in your own time, and you're managing your control and when you read that whereas if it comes into your inbox, you have no control over that really and you can avoid it but it's still gone into your psyche hasn't it still like oh there's a gap Ceylon Do you know, it's like having a gift card in your wallet and it kind of burning a hole in your pocket. Isn't that Oh,

Ingrid  34:56  
you didn't make me laugh less than any other time. have tips that we want to share before we finish these episodes.

Lesley  35:05  
The only thing that I would say is I think it's really for me, you know, even though my system is quite simple, I think it's important to have different email addresses for different purposes. So try if you can, if you've got businesses or you're doing volunteering or something like to have different emails, so you can, you know, so that if I said today, then for example, today's a declutter hug day, and I will try not to do anything to as clutter fairy today. And so it means that I can sit in that inbox and work in that inbox and not get distracted by other things. So I think it's really important for you to have different email at different email addresses for different purposes and keep those separate if you can.

Ingrid  35:41  
Excellent point. Well, listeners, I think that's it for this episode are really intrigued to hear how you're doing with your email and how you're doing with your decluttering and police Ascendance comments, or go to our Facebook group group community called the declutter hub. If you want to share and come clean and how many emails you have in your inbox and what you're going to do about it, and if you've been unsubscribing subsist successfully. So thanks so much for taking the time to listen today. If you'd like to get more tips and advice, please follow us on social media. We are on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as at declutter hub. And like I said, we've got a lively supportive Facebook group community, where we chat all things clutter and you can search for the declutter hub community. We'd love to see you there. If you don't want to miss the next weekly episode, please subscribe to the declutter podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher and it will pop into your notifications each Friday. See you next time.

Outro  36:45  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com For more inspiration. Don't forget to tune in next week.
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