If having too much stuff does your head in, having too much digital stuff does exactly the same, despite not actually taking up room– it still takes up space in your head and might send you mental. And don’t be fooled by the cheapness of digital storage if you canb’t find stuff for the sheer volume – it’s time to get stuck into it now!
Have a go, you’ll be amazed how good it feels to have a small inbox!
Declutter your inbox first
it’s easier than the sent items
Sort your inbox by ‘subject’
This way all emails concerning the same topic are automatically grouped together.
You will find:
- whole topics that are no longer relevant. Click on the first item then Ctrl click on the last to highlight the whole block and delete in one go!
- e mail threads that went on for a long time, but you can delete all but the most recent one – because that will have the whole thread in it.
Sort your inbox by ‘from’
- You will find
- Correspondence with people you don’t have dealing with any more or you don’t like.
- e mails from years ago that are not relevant any more – just keep the last month of correspondence or so!
- Emails form newsletters and mail outs you don’t read any more or normally delete but forgot here and there.
- Make it a routine
- Delete the deleted items folder at the end of every day. Just go into ‘Deleted items’ and press Ctrl a; all will be highlighted ready for your to press delete!!
- If you create subfolders in your inbox, don’t forget to do all the above for them, too. Just because you once filed it, doesn’t mean it has to be kept for eternity!
- Celebrate by telling everyone how many emails you just deleted and how great it feels!
Beware there is more
(your email program is bottomless pit!)
- Open the ‘search Folder’ on the left side.
Click on unread emails. Chances are there is a lot of stuff in there you didn’t even bother opening. Now is the time to delete them bar the ones form last week!
- Be aware of sub folders in your deleted items folder. You might have created them and then forgotten
- RSS feeds
I never subscribe to any, but used to get heaps and didn’t notice. You can unsubscribe but don’t forget to delete the one’s you don’t like!
Outlook Clean up tool
For Outlook, there is actually a tool for cleaning up your system. Open the File menu – mailbox clean up and check out some of the options.
I find the option to find ‘big’ mail very tempting. This might make a real difference to the speed of your computer if you can identify and delete those choking big files!!
