How I Dramatically Reduced My Email Load

By Nicola Balkind

Occasionally, on Twitter, someone will post a screencap (more like a screamcap, amirite?) of the email notification badge on their phone. Invariably it reads over 100, or in some cases even over 1000. I find this baffling.

Question

How many emails do you get each day?

How many emails do you get each day, really? How many of them are useful?

My Answer

I probably get around 10-30 emails per day.
I get more like 5-8 emails per day, really.

How do you do that?

The trick? It’s to get as many emails that you don’t really need to see to bypass your inbox.

It takes a little work upfront, but like any good system, it’ll save you a lot of hassle (and a lot of red notification badges).

I’m not quite an inbox zero kind of girl, but I do have a few stipulations:
1. No notifications
2. Only useful or to-be-actioned emails stay in my inbox
3. Newsletters, press information and mass emails bypass the inbox.

So, here are some ways that I reduced the amount of email that hits my inbox.

1. Unsubscribe

Been signed up for hunners of marketing emails that you didn’t want, or even newsletters you thought you’d read but don’t? Take half an hour to go through and unsubscribe from them manually.

Similarly, unsubscribe from social media-related emails. I can’t imagine a situation where you’d actually email notifications from Twitter letting you know that a spambot followed you. I mean it! UNSUBSCRIBE.

2. Unroll.me

There’s this great script called Unroll.me (also their URL) that can really help you to clear out your inbox. It has a few features:

The Roll-Up – Select the people whose emails you don’t need to see right away, and add them to your roll-up. This is a daily digest that gathers together all of your newsletters, or notifications, or other mail that’s low priority.

My roll-up includes business newsletters, addresses that only send me press releases, account-related marketing emails I haven’t figured out how to turn off, bank statement alert emails, and any account notifications that are occasionally useful.

Unsubscribe – You can also unsubscribe from emails within Unroll.me. I prefer to unsubscribe manually and get off people’s mailing lists altogether, but this is a good option for accounts that want you to sign in to unsubscribe, or even to hide emails from press lists or other nonsense emails with no manual option.

3. Create rules

Another way I keep my inbox tidy is by creating rules. Often these capture things like press emails that come from new addresses that aren’t in my contacts.

To give an example, one such rule is: If body includes “press” “screening” and “London”, mark as “Press”. Since I’m in Scotland and most of these are irrelevant, I don’t have to worry about missing much. These emails go straight into my “Press” folder, which I only need to check when I’m pitching reviews.

4. Use folders

As hinted at above, I have a filing system for emails. This might sound complicated, but you could have just a few key folders.

The folders I find most useful are:
Accounts – sign-up emails, orders.
Accounts/Work – as above, related to my business.
Friends – personal emails.
Work – work-related emails.
Work/[Client name] – work-related emails relating to a particular client or project.
Press – press releases, screening invites, etc.
Unroll.me – automatic folder containing my roll-up items.

5. Work on your methods

When I get up in the morning, I check my emails. Anything that has slipped through the net or isn’t important (e.g. an order dispatch notice, or a ‘thank you’ that doesn’t require a response) goes straight into folders.

Only emails that require your attention should remain in your inbox.

Now, most wisdom dictates that you should’t use your inbox as a to-do list. I agree, but I also like to keep relevant emails in my inbox until they’ve been ticked off. If I’m awaiting a response, I’ll file the email away unless I need that reminder there.

The result

The result? My inbox stays, if not at 0, under 10.

While my methods might not work for you, I know from experience that making moves to organise your inbox can really reduce your stress levels. It removes digital and mental clutter, gives things a sense of order. Most importantly, it allows you to focus on the important things first.

Your Turn

What are your best tips for streamlining your emails? Share them in the comments or shoot me a tweet @robotnic.

Making Time for Personal Projects

By Nicola Balkind

I was planning to write about “Giving it Away for Free” – “it” being your expertise – but since it’s still the end-of-summer slowdown for me, I had a better, but related, idea.

Let’s talk about how to make time for your personal projects.

For me, one of the biggest challenges in freelancing / running my own business is dealing with downtime. There are reasons to embrace the uncertainty: it means that when you work hard, you earn more, and that when things are quiet, you have time to do your own thing. The tricky part is keeping your own momentum going when it’s most important.

All this to say that I haven’t mastered it yet. But I have written a book, kept my personal blog, weekly newsletter, and YouTube channel going, and sustained a podcast to 15 consecutive episodes during the past 2 years of running my own business.

Here’s my advice for making time for your passion projects, whether you’re a small business owner, a freelancer, or working on a side hustle.

Plan to 80% capacity

In fact, you probably want to plan below 80% – but it’s a start.

Planning to 80% capacity means scheduling in client work (or your equivalent) for 4 out of 5 days of the week.

For one thing, there’s plenty else for you to be doing with unbillable tasks: marketing, book-keeping, invoicing, even tidying up your office.

For another, you need to give yourself some of that good thinkin’ time – when you’re ALERT! – to devote to your own projects.

Give yourself a little leeway to ensure you’re not overworking and burning yourself out.

Prioritise your passions

Sounds obvious, right? If you want to make something for yourself, you have to make it a priority. But it’s also probably the easiest project to brush off. It’s easy to make excuses – time, money, circumstances – but you really have to give your projects that time and effort if you want to make progress.

Treat your project like a client: schedule it into your calendar and stick to it. Generally, Thursday afternoons are my work “me” time: I go to a café, put my headphones on, turn email off and get to work. If you have a way to signal this to yourself – for me it used to be a Thursday lunchtime yoga class – all the better.

It’s also wise to have a go-to project waiting in the wings for when you have some downtime. Client call delayed? Meeting cancelled? Quieter time of year? Make your personal project the first thing you reach for – rather than a book or the TV remote.

DON’T make Friday your projects day

I’ve got a feeling that folk won’t like this one… but Fridays just don’t work for me.

On one hand, Fridays are generally less demanding in terms of emails, calls and meetings. And this is all part of using your self-discipline. But personally, by Friday I’m burnt out, tired, lazy, and would rather go read a book than start writing.

As I mentioned above, Thursday afternoon tends to be my sweet-spot: it’s a good time to aim to finish up client projects, but gives me Friday mornings to finish things out for the week, rather than ending up taking a 3-day weekend. I look forward to it, I’m still alert, and it’s a great way to unwind from all the other stresses of the week.

Go all out: do it daily

Better still – and this is my strategy during these quiet summer months – give yourself a little time each day.

This could mean waking up early and devoting the first hour of each day to your task, or it might mean using your downtime as I suggested above. Think about the times when you work best, and what you can do to move the project forward during those envelopes of time.

If you can do 90 minutes before you get down to work on your paid projects, all the better. Robin Sharma calls this the 90-90-1 rule: for 90 days, devoting the first 90 minutes of your work day to the one project you want to finish most.

I’ve not quite committed to this one yet myself, but you know what? When I find time for my personal projects during the work day, I feel happier and more productive.

More tips & strategies

Smoe more ways of working you can try are:

One Thing Today: Michael Nobbs promotes the habit of doing one thing, every day, for 20 minutes, to move your creative life forward. | Sustainably Creative

The 90-90-1 Rule, in full. | Robin Sharma

You could emulate The Daily Routines of Great Writers. | Brainpickings

And finally, apply these tips on How To Do Like a Boss to all your works in progress. | Being Boss Podcast

Your turn!

How do you go about fitting your passion projects into your workday? What does the side-hustle look like for you?

I’d love to hear your answers in the comments, or you can shoot me an email and we’ll chat there.