Just hit 350 unread emails in my inbox and I feel like a complete failure

I opened my work email for the first time in two weeks after a vacation and seeing that number just made me want to close the tab and pretend it doesn't exist - has anyone else just given up and started fresh instead of sorting through all that junk?

4 comments

4 Comments

karen_sanchez4916d ago

350 is definitely rookie numbers honestly, you can get that up way higher if you really try. But real talk, don't start fresh. You'll just miss something important and then have to dig through your trash folder later anyway. Set a timer for 15 minutes and just mass delete anything from mailing lists or newsletters first. Then sort by sender and batch delete obvious junk. It's gonna take a few rounds but it's way better than the anxiety of a fresh inbox that still has a bunch of unread stuff you already forgot about.

corablack16d ago

Ever have a friend who lost an important tax email that way?

quinna8916d ago

Man honestly this is such a good point and it hits on something bigger I've noticed. People treat their inbox like a physical desk and just let stuff pile up because they think a clean slate will fix everything, but it never does. Same thing with closets or even phone apps - it's easier to just shove everything in a drawer than actually sort through it, but then you just end up with a mess somewhere else. I've started doing a quick daily purge instead of waiting for it to get overwhelming, like 5 minutes just unsubscribing from spam while I wait for coffee to brew. It's not glamorous but keeps it from turning into a monster again.

kelly.charlie16d ago

Honestly I've gotta push back on this a little. I find that massive inbox purge every few months actually works better for me than tiny daily tasks. I let it build up to like 600 emails, then one Saturday I just nuke everything from three months ago without looking. Only missed one thing so far and it was a coupon. Plus @corablack is right about tax stuff, but if you just save important PDFs to a folder right away you can delete the whole inbox with no regrets. The coffee timer thing would just make me feel like I need to check my phone while my bacon burns.