It's that conundrum:  It's an email notifying you of something important, but it came in at the wrong time. You can’t do anything with it now, you need it later. Yep, you can do that. Examples like:

• Your boss says they’ll take care of your issue by next Tuesday at the latest, you need to follow up Wednesday afternoon if you haven’t heard anything.

• Your bill is due in 2 weeks, but you don’t get paid until next week, so you need to remember to get back to it once you have the money.  

• The aunt/uncle is going in for a medical procedure the end of next week, you want to be a good family member and send them a text or note the day before.

How on earth will you remember these at the right times? Do you have a system for remembering? Will it likely get lost in your inbox somewhere? Snooze the emails so they come back at the right time to remind you…

It’s time for a new habit around email.

The habit of checking our email and refreshing over and over throughout the day is common to many who use email for work. When it dings, lights up, or pops up…it pulls your attention away. It may be for a split second just to read the notification, or you might end up clicking into it and taking care of it right then.

You need to stop checking your inbox constantly, rapid switching in and out of your email decreases your productivity.

You are the supreme ruler over your email inbox! You GOT this!

It happens to everyone, being swamped with a full inbox after a holiday trip, a busy day of back-to-back meetings and they pile up, or you ignored it for a week, and now it looks like a mountain of email. If you get emails a lot, this experience must be overwhelming.

If you want to clean out your email inbox and keep it under control, it starts with two concepts…