Manage the email madness

Sources. Supervisors. Newsletters. Personal messages. Spam. 

Email (and the stress it causes) adds up quickly, dooming us to scroll (and scroll, and scroll) — which can take a toll on mental health and add stress. 

Consider this: The average person spends more than a quarter of their week reading and responding to email. How much of that is important and relevant? (Hint: Much less than half, at 38 percent.)

Here are some methods to manage the email madness: 

• Unsubscribe from newsletters you don’t read (even if you really did mean to). Instead, schedule a time to scroll through all updated content on the original  site. 
• Act after reading every email. That may be to respond, schedule action, archive or delete. Once you’ve acted, remove the email from your inbox. 
• Use folders … or develop your search skills. Creating folders can be helpful when categories are broad enough to make filing decisions quickly (think action items, waiting, reference, archives) but can be harmful when it takes more time to find something than a simple search. 
• Use filter and rule functions to direct incoming traffic based on keywords, subject lines, or sender. This can keep high-priority email (from your supervisor or for a specific project) separated, or can help direct newsletters to a folder for you to read as you have time. 
• Delete and block unwanted promotions, and report and delete spam. While you’re at it, start your cleanup by searching and purging emails that are no longer relevant (email from previous jobs, for example).
• Read and reply to email at set times each day. Choosing a few times to go “off the email grid” can turn off the Pavlovian need to respond that comes from email notifications.