Episode 401 – 6 Email Processing Tips to Help You Save Hours and Sanity with Tracy Hoth

Lesley: Email can feel like the modern day clutter hotspot For many of us, it's a constant stream of unread messages, unfinished decisions, and low level stress that follows us everywhere in today's epi. I am delighted to be joined by Organising coach Tracy Hoth, to talk about how to process the email in a way that saves you hours every week and restores your sanity.

More importantly, Tracy helps busy women simplify their homes and their workflows, and she has seen firsthand how inbox chaos can quietly drain your time and your energy if your inbox feels like it's running you instead of the other way around. This episode is definitely for you.

Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid.

Lesley: And I am Lesley. Now, if you are here for the very first time today, or you've been listening in for ages, we want to say a huge thank you we have a little favour to ask.

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Lesley: Welcome, Tracy. I am so delighted to see you here at the podcast today.

Tracy: I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Lesley.

Lesley: I know you've been on, you've been on vacation, haven't you? Have you been, did you say you're on vacation or was it on business?

Tracy: Yes. Two of my friends had a birthday and so they rented a little condo on the beach and said, please come join us and help celebrate.

Lesley: Oh, that sounds lovely. So whereabouts did you go on the beach? Where? Where was that?

Tracy: We went to Florida, near Destin, so that's a popular vacation spot here in the States. And we have White Sand. It's in the Gulf, and so it's just beautiful.

Lesley: Now I have to tell you, Tracy, now, that was a few months ago now, but right back at the beginning of January, I went to Florida for some winter sun as well. So we went down to Naples, but we were there when it was the Arctic freeze. So. It was not ideal. So my winter sun and my white sand on the Gulf Coast of Mex Gulf Coast of Mexico didn't quite pan out, but I'm really glad that you had a lovely time.

But we're not here to talk about Florida. We're here to talk about email. It's the bane of everybody's life, isn't it? It we can't do life without it. So we're here to try and help people along with their email inboxes. So. Tell us what's the difference. I know you know when, when we talked about this, you talked about processing emails and that really resonated with me.

'cause people talk, talk about reading emails, talk about deleting emails. So what's the different difference between checking an email, reading an email, deleting an email, and processing an email?

Tracy: Oh, this is so good. And I catch myself doing this all the time where I just say, oh, I'm gonna go over real quick and check my email. And I go over there and I'm like, oh look. Oh, I wanna read that. Oh, and you kind of just have this, oh, I'm just gonna scan 'em and see if I need to address anything where that.

Is called not processing. That is just you going in and looking at your email versus you going in with a purpose that you are going to process your email. And I think that's key. And we all know and can, I mean, I can feel the difference when I go into my email with a purpose. Same with when we're Organising, right?

We know when we're going in with a purpose and we're really focused versus we're going in. Down memory lane and remembering all the things. So that's the biggest difference.

Lesley: Okay, and so tell us about yourself. You talked a little bit about Organising there, you've talked about emails. So what makes you the person then, Tracy, to talk about email processing for us today? Tell us a little bit about you and your background.

Tracy: Yes, I've been a professional organiser for 17 years, so I've been in people's homes and offices, helping them get organized, finding new ways to be productive and efficient if they want that, if they're noticing in their life that it's causing them pain or time or. Problems in relationships. And then recently I've moved to, well, in 2018 I got life coach certified.

So I've combined a lot of the mindset piece of it and how your brain works with the practical Organising steps and moved into. Also helping people organize their business. The back end of their business, their digital files and email is just a huge part of running a business or life really is just the amount of emails that we get.

Lesley: I know as soon as you go away for a couple of hours, you come back and there's another 50 sitting there waiting for you, isn't there? And, I tried to think now you've been away for a couple of weeks on vacation, how that, how that sits because you're like, oh, I've got so much to do. And you know, in our world as.

Well, you know where, where there is clutter, there is email clutter as well, and people, I'm sure in your world as well, it runs to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of emails that have been that sitting there, unprocessed, unread, un deleted, unfiled and things like that. So it's a huge problem, and you're right, it definitely is about that mindset.

It's about. Sort of thinking about emails as part of your life and trying to deal with it in the same way that you would, the standard clutter in your home. So, but I'm gonna ask, ask you a question, Tracy, where do you think then that email sits in terms of orders of priority? When you are decluttering your stuff, the things that, the stuff that's in your house, the physical stuff, do you think that email is as important?

Do you think it should come afterwards? I'm interested in your take on that.

Tracy: So how I look at it is. yourself, where is their problems in my life, and this is with Organising too. Where am I noticing the friction? Where am I noticing not following through, not showing up like the person I want to, that's in your home, in different areas of your home, or if it's in your email, if you're not getting back to people, if you're forgetting things and you notice the friction there, that's when I would make a list of. prioritize it. So does email, is it causing you a lot of frustration? Are you spending a lot of time on it? Are you noticing you're missing appointments or know, priority emails for trips you're going on, or whatever it is? Are you not able to find things? And when you notice that pain, that problem, then that's when you prioritize putting a system in that is efficient or that's, that solves the problem for you.

Lesley: The problem is of course, that they're both equally important. Certainly the physical stuff and the email stuff and the organization, it's also interlinked, isn't it? You can't, you almost can't do one without the other. You can't just leave it and park it and ignore it, whether that's paperwork, whether that's email.

You have to kind of do the two things in tandem really, don't you? But it's really hard because when you go down that. Sort of email route you can get, you get stuck in a complete rabbit hole and you could be there for weeks, if not months, trying to sort it out. But there are quick ways that you can sort it out and hopefully Tracy, that's what you're gonna help our listeners with today.

So let's jump straight in and go, right. Okay, so somebody says, my life's incomplete chaos. I dunno what I'm doing. I'm missing things, I've got things coming in. I'm shopping when I don't want to. All of those things. Where do they get started?

Tracy: I always think about any Organising project to decide and treat it like a project, give it a start and end date. Even if you looked at, okay, in Q2 this is gonna be my goal, or in the month of March, email is going to be my goal and my focus. So you have that start and end date. So it's not just this endless project that you, you know, kind of drag on forever.

Nothing ever gets done so. You have your start date. You have your end date. Maybe you say, I am going to sort delete, you know, go through things 15 minutes every day or whatever amount or two hours on Saturday. So you kind of decide that, and then I would say that you stop. Like checking it or grazing with it.

And you start processing, and when I say processing, I'm talking, you're sorting. The first step in my process to get organized is to sort, and so I would say start by sorting, sorting the emails into. Folders, and we can touch on that in a minute. But when you go in, you're going to sort as fast as you can.

But one thing I do wanna mention real quick, 'cause I've been in people's homes where they're, they just have so much stuff. Like I get overwhelmed. I couldn't organize it, I couldn't maintain it because of the amount of stuff, email's the same way. We just have, so some people have so many emails, they've subscribed to so many email lists.

They've signed up for all the coupons, and so they just have just a million emails in there coming rapidly because I know I've signed up for, I don't know, some product and I get like three emails a day. So I think key is that we have to reduce the amount of emails that are coming in by unsubscribing. Like ruthlessly unsubscribing from things.

Lesley: The problem is now, of course, Tracy, is that you know, 'cause I am of course a ruthless, UN subscriber 'cause of the job that I do and what I believe in and what makes a big difference to me. But now I also like getting email receipts rather than paper receipts. And as soon as you, you click for that email receipt, you are back on that mailing list again.

So it's a constant, you know, revisiting of the unsubscribe as well. It's not just, I've unsubscribed once, but I dunno whether that's the same in the States, but it's definitely the same here. As soon as you click email receipt, you're back on the list even though you didn't ask for it, which is wrong anyway.

But, so it's interesting, isn't it, because it's not just a a, a one time unsubscribe now, unfortunately.

Tracy: Yes. Yes. And one of the tricks with that, that I like to do is do a search for that company

Lesley: Yeah.

Tracy: hit unsubscribe and then select all of those and delete 'em at the same time. So you'd it, you know, if you think about it, it doesn't take that long to unsubscribe and less, of course they have. just went on one that had at least. 20 options and sub options for subscribing to things. I had to go through every single option to unsubscribe, but typically it's a little easier than that to unsubscribe, and so you're just, you get the email unsubscribe. It just becomes a little habit that you can do quickly.

Lesley: Yeah, definitely. It's definitely the way to start, isn't it, as you're starting to sort to do those unsubscribes. 'cause it really, you can get rid of hundreds. Sometimes thousands at a time, can't you? If you do that bulk unsubscribe. And, but it's a process, you know, it's a process that you've gotta go through.

You've gotta be quite organized just to go through and to monitor, right? I've unsubscribe from everything coming from, 'cause there's different email addresses from different providers as well. So it's like, there's kind of a lot. So you do have to kind of keep on top of it, don't you? And, and know where you're going with it.

Otherwise you'll get a little bit lost even in the. Subscribe. So making it sound daunting, it absolutely isn't, but there's kind of a lot to it. 'cause there's a people, you know, different companies work in different ways when it comes to setting up mailing lists. Everyone you would hope is ethical, but they're not.

sadly. And so we're getting things that we don't want and, and so it is quite, it's quite the job to go through them. But yet unsubscribing is the key I think, to, to getting those emails down.

Tracy: and I also think it's really important, and this is how I feel about my house as well before I'm gonna bring something into it. I think to myself, okay, where is that gonna live? Do I really need this? Can I live without it? You know, is this wasteful? Am I trusting that I'll have everything I need? Same with email.

I think we sign up for things so quickly that we don't really think, okay, this is gonna require me if I sign up for this to go. 40 emails to go through and delete 'em, to feel overwhelmed, to maybe give up and then have it multiply by a hundred and then, then have to deal with it one day. So before I'm gonna save 10% on an item that I'm gonna buy, do I really want to deal with the email or is it worth just paying the extra 10% or whatever it is that they

Lesley: Yeah.

Tracy: So think through that carefully before signing up for things. So you're helping yourself in advance basically.

Lesley: Yeah, and and it's interesting really, isn't it, because it's a bit like as well, you need to think about it in advance, but then once it's in your inbox, the reason why we find it so difficult to unsubscribe and let go. It's almost a fear of missing out, isn't it? It's the same as a, a physical, just in case item.

We've got a kind of FOMO within of what if, do you need that sale? What if I miss a sale or anything like that? And so the psychology is huge even with email, isn't it?

Tracy: Yes, yes. And that, again, like one of my thoughts about it is I will be able to search when I'm at the store or when I'm buying something to find a coupon to use where I don't think I need to keep having that temptation. And then it distracts you and you're working and you all of a sudden on some site that you don't need

Lesley: Yeah.

Tracy: searching for at the moment. So I think all of it, it's just that. I will have what I need when I need it, and I can find it when I need it. I, I don't need that coming in because I will be able to find it when I need the coupon or the sale or whatever it is.

Lesley: Yeah, it's all about being more, more proactive than reactive, I guess, isn't it really, when it comes to email and indeed general shopping as well, because they're all so closely linked. So you talked a little bit about folders and things like that. Didn't you trace it? So was that something that you wanted to talk about?

Tracy: Yes, I like to use a broad fo broad folders, and this is in filing as well, like with paper as well as with, email. So if you could use the minimum number of folders when you're processing your email. You have your inbox, that's a folder. I like to process an action needed so you could sort the stuff that you need to take action on into an action folder. then I often have a pending folder where I'm waiting on someone else to get back to me. then we have the folder of trash or archive, whatever your use, whatever your system uses. So you are only sorting into. I need to take action on it or I, it's waiting for someone else's action or I'm getting rid of it. So when you're pro, you go into process your email, you're doing that as fast as you can. You're sorting into those folders. I sometimes have people that need have something like they wanna read it. You could, because that's not an action. It's gonna clog up your action needed. If it's just like something you wanted to read, so you could have a read folder as well.

So you're gonna sort everything into those folders, I think people get tripped up on perfectionism regarding email, like getting down to zero emails. Isn't necessarily the goal. I think the goal is that your brain has less decisions. Your brain has closed loops when it comes to your email, so you're not scanning the same email 20 times.

You're not going through and getting distracted by other things in your email. You're reducing the decisions that your brain has to make by sorting into these folders and by following that process.

Lesley: And I, I, I've got an interesting question because I, I think you would probably hate the way I. Do things, Tracy. 'cause I definitely, I have quite a good email system. I feel like I've got a candle on it, but I don't work on an inbox zero sort of scenario. And the problem for me is if I put something into a, a kind of pending folder because of my brain, I think it would be out of sight, out of mind a little bit.

And I perhaps wouldn't come back to it. And so I do keep things in my inbox, you know, I have a limit to what I keep at that. Creates my action needed really. But I agree with you. There are things that I'm reading 20 times that have been sat in my inbox maybe for six months because they've not quite been handled just yet.

So what do you think about that? Because I think that's something that quite a lot of people do, and I know that we are not doing it in a really good professional organiser way, but it's a system that kind of works for me, I think.

Tracy: I work in a similar system to you where I will catch myself doing that. So I think it's important that everyone tests it. have minimal emails, like I really am pretty good at unsubscribing from things or deleting things immediately, and so I don't have a problem with that as well. So I think. Test some things.

Test it for yourself. I'm big on you are going to figure out a system as you test things and see if that works for you and if it's working. I say don't change it, like keep it the

Lesley: Mm.

Tracy: is. It's if it's not working and if there's a real problem, those folders are an option for you to do. But

Lesley: Yeah.

Tracy: the key is that you have to go back to the action folder you would need to set times. During the day to go back to those folders to check like, so then you're gonna, you've sorted like, just like we do in Organising, we sort into like with like, so we have our action needed folder, and then we always go back to that pile and we delete or purge. That's the next step in my Organising process.

So you go back into. The pile or the folder and you process the folder you go through and purge the folder, take action on the folder to get rid of the things in the folder. So that's key is though that you have to go back to that.

Lesley: Yeah, I really like that sort of analogy really there. Trace. I think that's really gonna help our listeners as well. 'cause obviously very familiar with the gathering, like with like scenario with physical items. And so that, that idea of putting things into an action folder, a pending folder and potentially then your inbox or a to read folder, that's the gathering light we'd like at that stage.

And then at that stage you go in. And declutter from that. So your mind is focused on the volumes. You can, you, you know, you, you see what that has become. 'cause otherwise everything's just like, I've got a really full house, or I've got 30,000 emails. It's just like a little bit kind of, I don't know, it's a random number.

Is it? It's an arbitrary number almost. Whereas when you say, oh, I've got 20,000 things in my, pending folder, then you. You're confronted with the situation and the reality of what that is. So I think that's, I, I love that idea actually, Tracy, of that, of comparing it to a physical decluttering process.

Tracy: Yeah, and we follow the steps when we declutter physical spaces. So if we follow the steps, and that does take practice, right? We're gonna need to practice put on our calendar when we're gonna go into the action folder. But if I had 10 things in the action folder, I could stay really focused. Then if I'm in my general inbox and I'm. Oh, look at that. Oh, there's a sale. Oh, you know, and getting

Lesley: Yeah. Yeah.

Tracy: I go into my action folder. I like to start at the bottom because those are the ones that are the oldest and kind of work your way up the action folder. And one of the other things I say is like. When you're going to take a test, your professor gives you one hour to take this test or 30 minutes for this pop quiz, and you don't sit and relax, like you really focus.

You read one question at a time, answer it, and then maybe flag it if you wanna come back to it. But you really focus. And I say, do the same with those folders. When you're processing the folders, set the timer and say, okay, I'm gonna get rid of as many as I can. I have a client right now who's. Practicing this system to go through and as fast as possible, go through those, emails and take action on 'em and be really focused while doing it.

Lesley: And I think, you know, Tracy, you know, it just reminds me, so in our, in a hub membership, we have success sessions four times a week, which is a, a designated hour of time where people do things like, purging emails then. And the number is such a driving force, isn't, it really is such a big deal, you know, and, and so people will say.

I'm gonna get rid of some emails and then by the end of it I've got rid of 700 emails or whatever that is. And that number is something to be really proud of, I think, and it can drive people forward. So, love that idea. Love the ideas that you're coming up with so far. Let's pop to a break and let's come back and talk a little bit more with Tracy about email processing.

So welcome back. we're talking to the lovely Tracy Hoth, who is a professional organiser and she has been doing this for many, many years and she knows everything about email processing and I'm really enjoying her, my conversation with her and it's gonna make me look at things perhaps a little bit differently.

Just before we move on, Tracy, I just want to just come back to something we were talking about before the break. We were talking, we talked about unsubscribes, and then we talked about the kind of gathering, like with like process, putting things into those action folders. Then we talked about the possibility of declutter or purging at that stage.

So would you then just to get clarity on this unsubscribe before you put things into the folders, or would you do that once they were in the folders?

Tracy: I would probably unsubscribe from a lot of things to begin with.

Lesley: Okay.

Tracy: So it's kind of like walking around your house and pulling the trash into a bag before

Lesley: Okay.

Tracy: Maybe Organising is just get the surface stuff out so that you're not spending like, because you could have so many emails, I

Lesley: Yeah.

Tracy: start looking at the. The ones that you have, search for those, delete those so that you're not processing a bunch of stuff that you're gonna end up throwing in the trash

Lesley: Brilliant. I'm, I'm just loving this, this comparison between physical stuff and email, so thank you so much for putting it in those terms. Okay. We want more. Tell us more, Tracy, what else do we need to do?

Tracy: One of the things with emails too. So now you have a system, and I would really put times on your calendar when you're going to do this. So you're going in, you're sorting your inbox, you're going back into your folders, the action or pending or whatever. To process those. And one of the next things is replying back to people replying to emails.

And I like, in my business especially, but I think you could, this would work in, in, just, you know, home situations as well, is to have some templates and a lot of people don't know about the template folder. you can type a draft or type an email like you're gonna send it to someone and then. When you close it, it'll say, save this as a draft, or you can also put it in a template folder.

You just drag it from your draft down to your template folder and keep it. So then next time you're having to reply to something, you can use that template, just copy and paste it into your email and that saves. So much time. And I think now AI does such a good job as well. They're like, do you wanna reply?

And it gives you an option to reply as well, but sometimes you might have a link or you might have something that you need to include often. So using that template idea. The other thing that I just started using is the keyboard shortcut where you put, like, I type my email, my My website address a lot with different endings on it.

And so instead of typing simply squared away.com out, every single time I have a little shortcut where where I type SSS in that email address comes up or that website comes up. And so using little tricks like that are helpful.

Lesley: Brilliant. Yeah, and, and definitely the, yeah, AI is really doing a lot of work for us at the moment, which is super handy if you will embrace it and don't be scared of it. I think a lot of our people are, oh, look, bit scared. And so of course you need to check it and make sure that what he is saying is what you want to say.

but I think it's super handy and in some ways, you know, we use templates for various things in our business and you know, sometimes. AI does that for us and we don't even need to go into those templates. And so times are changing, aren't they, Tracy? But yeah, I think templates are so important, particularly in business, I would say.

'cause mostly in, in, our personal lives it's a little bit more, they're more kind of unique. Emails aren't there, but certainly in business, in a business context, templates are everything. So, yeah. Brilliant. Okay.

Tracy: so let's just review real quick. So we're not gonna check 'em, we're gonna start processing. So set a time when you're gonna do it. Then use one simple system and you're gonna test this to find out what works. So sort into those folders that I mentioned to try that for yourself and see what part of that works.

And then. Process. So take time to sh put things in the folder and that's where you're closing those loops and you know Exactly. So it's not overwhelming. So it's kind of like that following the Organising steps, use templates. And then the fifth one is to decide once to think differently. The really. The part of this a lot ties into your identity.

If you keep thinking that you're someone who isn't good at email, who has so many emails, who always is missing emails, you're gonna keep performing like that. I always love the phrase you're, you can't outperform your identity. So if you think of yourself like someone who's bad at email. You're gonna continue to perform like someone who's bad at email.

So what do you need to think that's different about it? And I think that you, Really thinking through like I'm someone who has a system, that system could be as simple as I check my emails twice a day and I unsubscribe from four emails every day. Like it could be as simple as that. But you are someone now with the identity of being good at email, of being ruthless with email, of being organized with email, whatever it is that you want to start performing, like.

Lesley: So important that that positive self-talk, isn't it, Tracy? You know, where wherever we are in the Ative world, you know, we need to start knowing that these, these things can be learned. You know, and, and like you say, you can't just keep talking. I, I'm bad at this, I'm bad at this. She needs to go. I may have been bad about this in the past, but the only way is up from here.

So I need to start being kind to myself knowing that there's other things in life that I'm better at, but I will be good at email and I'm gonna try and I'm gonna practice until I get it right. And so, so important to not be sort of stuck in that negative downward spiral when it comes to any kind of systems in your home.

Tracy: Yes. Yeah. And then the sixth one is just to set boundaries. And as I was thinking through different boundaries that you wanna have that you might wanna try or test as well. First, I am always telling people to turn off notifications, like we do not need to be notified every time we get an email. And that's on your.

Phone I have, I've been around people who have the sound on on their phone, and they're getting little rings all the time. anywhere on your, all your devices, turn the notifications off for email because you're going to check your email and I don't think email is something that you need to. You know, stop everything to reply to.

They could call you on the phone. They could, I mean, even text is probably a little bit more, you respond quicker. But email, I think, has become not something you need to reply to right away. So turn off notifications. Maybe you have something where you wanna, email's becoming a time waster for you, maybe you want to have a little rule or boundary where you don't check your email before you do some Organising or before you do your exercise. Something where you have your priority thing in your life, the thing you wanna most prioritize, you do that first, and then you can check your email. I, there's some other ideas like no email after 4:00 PM Someone even said, I need to remove email from my phone and then just go to their computer. That would be a great way to really enforce going to your computer to set a time that you're gonna work on your email.

Lesley: I think it's a really interesting one, isn't it? Because we do, we do become a slave to our email. I'm terrible. I'm terrible for checking emails. First thing is, my eyes pop open in the morning, you know, probably the last thing before I go to bed. So all do, definitely do what I say, not what I do, I think is the message here.

I wish, I wish that I could follow my own advice. But I think it very much depends on where you are and what you do. You know, when you run your own business, it's a little bit difficult. You know, there's a lot of, even, even kind of don't have the phone next to your bed. But then my dad, my, you know, if my dad rings in the middle of the night, he has a fall.

I have to, you can always, it's hard, isn't it? Sometimes there are circumstances which make it difficult to follow your own rules. but I think, you know, what I see is that people get nervous. It's that kind of, it's the same where we, you know. With physical stuff, we want to put stuff near the front door to remind us before we're going out.

We feel like we need that visual reminder and getting an email notification falls into that category, I think, doesn't it? So I've seen so many people who are get, who are spending their. You know, a lot of the working day, or a lot of the day, sorry, on Facebook, on Instagram, those kind of on social media platforms and getting emails to tell them that someone has posted or someone is liked or someone, and it's like, whoa, like, you know, as if Facebook's not overwhelming enough as it is for people.

We're also getting emails to tell us that things have happened when we know that we proactively go to Facebook on a daily or even two, three times a day basis. So we don't need those. Or sometimes it's really like you say, taking a step back and looking at your own behaviors and going, what do I do? You know?

You know, I like you say, you will check your emails. We will check our emails. Now, some people might be like. Geez, I don't remember checking my emails from one side of the week to the next. And if that's you, then maybe you do need that, that physical reminder to go check something. But it is really about evaluating your own behavior to drive your own decision making about how email's gonna work for you, isn't it?

Tracy: Yes, and, and with such compassion. None of this is judgment toward

Lesley: Yeah.

Tracy: but if you notice, I don't, I mean, it's not a problem to check your email in the morning and at night, but if you want to start creating more of a process. And this is for anyone. Maybe start small, of course, and maybe once a day.

You're gonna schedule a time now where you start doing that. And maybe it's starting just by deleting things and unsubscribing from things. And then that will grow into processing the email. And you can still check it morning, night, any other time. But just start by scheduling one time on your calendar where you're going to. Do focused only on email and keep that appointment and just get good at that appointment, and then you can grow from there too. So again, just compassion. We're gonna make some changes, but if it's not a problem, don't spend time doing that. You know, you can have other priorities, but when it is, then decide, okay, I'm gonna focus on working on email and creating a little more of a system than I have currently.

Lesley: Exactly and I that you know, Tracy, you're sort of speaking our language really. 'cause it is all about that compassion. It's about that, those baby steps, it's about breaking it down. You know, it's about knowing that we don't need to be perfect, we just need to be a little bit better and focusing time and attention, to something that's gonna make our life easier.

That's what this is all about. It's not about judgment. It's not about I'm terrible at emails or you are terrible at emails. It's just about how can we make life just that little bit more easy? So let's just ask you one final question. If someone is gonna do one thing today to get the ball rolling, what should it be?

Tracy.

Tracy: I would say set a time on their calendar when they're going to work on deleting or unsubscribing from emails. That's probably the starting point for most people because they just have so many things they're getting emails from. So put that time on your calendar. There are also software out there, and I'll have to send you the link to the one that was recommended.

I've been this whole time trying to remember what it was called. It's been a while since I've. Used it or had a client that's used it, but they, you could get that software for 30 days and that could be your project time and it helps you go through your inbox. It actually helps you delete and, and collect and sort the emails to start with so you can unsubscribe for 'em.

So a client of mine had used it and loved it. She said it was very helpful. So I'll send

Lesley: Oh really?

Tracy: link to that or the name of that.

Lesley: Yeah, no, that'd be super helpful. And obviously, we will put that into the show notes along with all of trace's where you can find more out about trace. So you tell us here now, Tracy, where can people find out a little bit more about you? Because I'm sure everyone will have loved what you've had to say today.

Tracy: Yes, go to the Organized Coach podcast. That is my podcast, and I talk about all things Organising, your business behind the scenes in your home, in your life there. And then my website is simply squared away.com. I have a 15 minute declutter challenge that you can get on the website there as well.

Lesley: Oh, fantastic. Well, Tracy, I've loved our conversation today. it's given me a little bit more food for thought. I might think about a pending folder as well, whether I forget about it. I dunno. I'm just gonna go, oh, you know it, I don't think it's a. I don't think it's the fact that the system is broken.

The system is very much not broken, but could I be more productive doing it in a different way, is the question. So I am managing it is perfectly fine. It's orderly. I don't forget things, but am I double handling, triple handling, quadruple handling? I think that might be the case since I'm gonna have another think about that after this podcast.

But for now, Tracy, thank you so much for being with us on the Declutter Hub podcast today, and we will see you soon.