Use that delete key
(www.myorganizedbiz.com) – If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the volume of email you receive, it’s possible you need to make more frequent use of your delete key. Even with impossible amounts of storage available, you still need to hit delete every so often. In fact, the more frequently you use it, the better.
Here’s what happens when you keep every email that comes at you: you can’t find anything. Remember that email you sent to that client about the thing they wanted you to do next month? Well, would it be easier to pinpoint in 20 emails or 20,000? I thought so.
Even with great search functions like Google desktop and Spotlight, there’s no reason to keep everything. With search, you just need to remember a few key things from your message. But it’s much easier to wade through fewer emails to find exactly what you’re looking for.
A friend on Twitter had a great suggestion the other day. If she only needs a snippet of information from an email, she captures it someplace else and then deletes the email. Maybe it’s just a phone number. Or an appointment. Why not add it to your address book or calendar and then trash the email? She mentioned a Word document that she uses for things like that, but it could be anything that works for you: an appointment book, a database, a document, a spreadsheet. Anything – as long as you can find it later. As long as you can put your finger on it within a minute or two (preferably less) of needing it, all without too much searching.
I have been known to keep emails with addresses and phone numbers and even directions in them. I leave them in Gmail because I can access it from any computer. But Gmail also has a contacts section where I can list that same info. So wouldn’t it make sense to list it under the contact’s name where I can easily get to it, instead of searching thousands of emails from or to a particular person? I’m learning to be better at that.
So again, reduce the number of things you need to look through to find the information you need. Don’t spare that delete key – let it fly! What do you have trouble giving yourself permission to toss?