Spring Cleaning—Digital Style

My personal project for last week was, sadly, cleaning out my Gmail inbox. Yes, it took me all week. And slowly I got my numbers down from more than 800 to its current 10.

Ah...it's nice. And it's been surprisingly easy to maintain. I have not reached more than 10 in the past 5 days. That's impressive for me!

I started doing this with the simple objective of getting things in order and ultimately seizing control of parts of my life that seem to be in utter disarray. Since I spend a lot of time on computers and, as a result, on e-mail, this seemed like the perfect place to start. It would be quick, easy, and take no extra effort—practically.

Of course I might just have to tackle my work e-mail account next. Yikes.

But, I started looking at exactly WHY I have had such a hard time keeping a neat, simple inbox in the past. I figured someone has to have done a survey about what your e-mail inbox says about you. And after a quick Google search, I found I was right.

Some of us are Hoarders. Some of us are Deleters.

Obviously I'm a hoarder. And, according to Jeffrey Zaslow's article "How You Handle Your Email Inbox Says a lot About You," here's what it means:

You are your inbox.

Take a clear-eyed look at how you answer or file each email. Notice what you choose to keep or delete. Consider your anxiety when your inbox is jammed with unanswered messages.

The makeup and tidiness of your inbox is a reflection of your habits, your mental health and, yes, even the way Mom and Dad raised you.

"If you keep your inbox full rather than empty, it may mean you keep your life cluttered in other ways," says psychologist Dave Greenfield, who founded the Center for Internet Behavior in West Hartford, Conn. "Do you cling to the past? Do you have a lot of unfinished business in your life?"

On the other hand, if you obsessively clean your inbox every 10 minutes, you may be so quick to move on that you miss opportunities and ignore nuances. Or your compulsion for order may be sapping your energy from other endeavors, such as your family.

Maybe those are generalities. But how do they really compare to you and your life? For me, I do keep my life cluttered in other ways. (Take a quick look at my bedroom...OK, uh nvm!) Plus, I love having a million things going on. But I do appreciate a bit of order too, especially in areas or parts of life that aren't entirely "mine." (i.e. I don't like other people having to deal with my disorganization.)

Another reason? This is a big one. I use my e-mail inbox (and also Google Reader) as a to-do list of sorts. I read an e-mail, think "oh I need to use/remember that later," mark it unread or star it and move on. Then things start to stack up and eventually I have hundreds of e-mails staring at me each and every day. (Did I also mention that I have nearly 200 e-mail drafts too? These are notes about anything and everything that I compose and save so I can access certain information any time.)

So this is probably why Danny Sanchez's (@dannysanchez) #1 tip on managing insane amounts of e-mail is to NOT use your inbox as a to-do list.

Using your inbox as a to-do list is the cardinal sin of e-mail. It is the key factor in slowing you down. And it makes your inbox a scary place to be.

Sanchez instead suggests you "port your action items to an actual to-do list." Makes sense.

As I said, maintaining my under-10 inbox has been easier than I expected. I just have to make myself do something with the e-mail right then!

Starting right here and right now, you’re going to process your email as it comes in, and as you’re done with each message, you’re going to either delete it or file it away in a folder separate from your inbox. This means your inbox will be completely empty—clutter-free!—on a regular basis. From here on in, think of your inbox as a temporary holding pen for stuff you haven’t dealt with yet. (Which, coincidentally, is the definition of “inbox.”) Once you make a decision or take an action on a message, move it out of your inbox. That way, you can see at a glance what email you have to process, and everything else is out of sight (and out of mind.)
From Gina Trapani's (@ginatrapani) "Simple Strategies to Clear Email Clutter."

I know a "clean" e-mail inbox isn't a big deal for a lot of people (although for many others it is), but hey, any step towards any type of decluttering is a good one. And I'm now more motivated to go on and tackle bigger projects: maybe some actual physical spring cleaning like my closet and perhaps our kitchen drawers!