OK I’ve done it. It took about two hours, but would have been much shorter had I not tried multitasking. Why did I multitask? The only exception I make for multitasking- watching sports, namely the NFL playoffs and Kentucky versus Louisville annual rivalry game in basketball.

I had let my Gmail inbox get way out of hand lately. I have followed David Allens GTD system in the past, by addressing emails when they show up if they take less than two minutes to address. I also had created a series of @ labels to capture next actions. For example @ read/review and @ add to database and @ waiting for. The missing ingredient was a whole lot of elimination. I realized last week that I cannot keep up with the endless emails coming into my inbox on a weekly basis, nor do I want to. It’s not like they all lead to profit. Between comments from my blogs, twitter and facebook notifications, email newsletters, email advertisements (why can’t everybody send one update per week max), customer conversations, billing statements, reminders, and everything else; I could no longer find the important messages amongst the clutter. After reading a few other blogs and books, and using organizing principles I decided to tackle this problem of information overload via email.

1. I decided that I would much rather get my content from RSS (google reader) than from email newsletters. If the ezine (email newsletter) I was subscribed to had a blog with an RSS feed, then I subscribed to the feed and unsubscribed to the ezine. This presents a small issue because some, myself included, send ezines and do blog posts. Here is the difference: I only send one very well organized weekly ezine. Everything else is posted to my blogs. If I couldn’t get the feed or the ezine had different content, oh well. I have the websites bookmarked and I can always go there if I really want to check in on the authors latest information. This cut back drastically on the number of incoming emails I was getting.
2. I decided to unsubscribe to all email ads. Even the really cool ones from Apple, 37 signals, and Igourmet. It didn’t take much will power to boot the uncool like Vistaprint. I love their printing for certain products but I don’t want to hear from them every time someone at their office uses the bathroom. This cut out a lot more incoming mail.
3. I turned off many of my reminders and notifications, except Twitter. I love Twitter and really feel it’s useful. Although lately, many people have stopped answering the question and started using Twitter as 2nd email.
4. I deleted all the unread ezines and updates in my @ read/review label (works like a folder except better for non Gmail users). Let’s face it I wasn’t going to sit down and read all 200 backlogged ezines. If it was important enough it will be recycled.
5. I consolidated many of the labels I had created to store my mail. Google already has great search features for finding your messages and they give you so much storage space you don’t really need to delete. I love to delete though. It’s liberating. I do label and archive most semi important messages. When consolidating my labels I looked for common bonds when sorting through my system. For instance I took all funny emails, political emails and neat stories and put them into a label called Keepers. Then I purged the labels for Funny, Politics and Misc. In Gmail you can edit any message or multiple messages by selecting the email via clicking it and then by clicking “More Actions” new label or existing labels. The cool thing about Gmail verus using a folder system is that messages can have multiple labels. Maybe you got an email that was from a customer but pertained to a software or blog they recommended. You might want to label it with both the customers name and the new blog.
6. Now my inbox is empty. My @ read/review can now be managed on a weekly basis. I batch (let it accumulate and do it all at once to avoid start up time and task switching) this activity for Saturday afternoons or Sundays while watching football, basketball or golf. It’s not power reading and doesn’t require a lot of concentration, so I just quickly sift through and see which ones interest me.
7. Last I use the star function in Gmail to star the emails that require a next action. These would be responses, info requests, passwords or billing info to print or record for future reference. This could also be a thread that needs a reply. I like to use a @ waiting label for emails that have been sent or that require someone else to act.

Now that I’ve given you a game plan, get on top of your email inbox this month. January is a great time to clear out the clutter and close those open loops in your head. The fact that your inbox in cluttered up probably means that you don’t know what you might be missing. Here is the rub. It may be nothing and all your worry is for naught, or it could be a very important opportunity that is going unaddressed. Don’t procrastinate it any longer. Block out a couple hours with no task switching and get er done.