So, you’ve got a MASSIVE amount of emails in your inbox and you just can’t keep up anymore.  Everyday it’s a battle: “where is so-in-so’s” email I just opened yesterday, I can’t find it ANYWHERE”!! You’ve got so many other high-value things to do in your business that your inbox organization doesn’t exist.  But, you know you need to stay efficient in responding to the important people that are a part of your business. 

Here’s a simple way to get your inbox quickly organized until you have a bit more time to think about how what categories you need to implement to stay on top of them all.  Or, this might just be the way that works for you in the long run. 

I’m visualizing my GMAIL inbox, but you can essentially do this with any inbox you have (Outlook, Yahoo. etc).

Create Four categories: GROUP A, GROUP B, GROUP C, GROUP D (Call them whatever you want to make it fun if that’s how you work! )

Group A: This category will be for the emails that need to get done today, no exceptions!

Group B: These are the emails that need to be taken care of within the next couple of days or by then end of the week, depending on your business, turnaround time, etc.

Group C: All important emails that don’t have a necessary timeline, are due at the end of the quarter, or blogs/tips that you really want to read through, but haven’t gotten to yet.

Group D: All of the rest – this can include blogs/newsletters/ads/etc that you’ve opted into in the past that you don’t want to be a part of anymore, but just don’t have the time to unsubscribe to.     Or, anything else that just doesn’t pertain to your business anymore.

Now that you’ve got your groups created, start moving them over! 

Of course, when you have more time, you can create a bit more elaborate system.  Or, if you don’t like the timeline groupings above, think about how you can group them into these four categories that work for you!

Level-up and create canned email response templates that you can copy and paste for the repetitive  day-to-day responses you have. And of course, if you think that you’ll need constant help with your inbox organization, think about outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant who can help!

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