Hey friends!
Be honest—how many unread emails are sitting in your inbox right now? (No shame—I’ve seen everything from 500 to 50,000.) Email can feel like a second full-time job, and most of us don’t have the time or energy to baby-sit it all day. Between work updates, school notes, random promotions, and those newsletters you never even signed up for, it piles up fast.
Here’s the good news: you don’t have to spend hours glued to your phone or computer to finally feel on top of your inbox. A few small shifts can help you go from “oh no” to “okay, I’ve got this.”
Here are my go-to tips:
1. Start Fresh (No, You Don’t Have to Read All 8,642 Emails)
If your inbox feels like a monster, don’t try to tame it one email at a time. Move everything older than 6 months into a folder called “Archive” and breathe. Instant breathing room. And yes, if you really need that soccer practice email from 6 months ago, you can always search for it later.
2. Unsubscribe Like Your Sanity Depends on It
Spoiler: you don’t need 12 sale emails a day from the same store. Every time you delete instead of open, that’s a sign—unsubscribe. Each click now saves you dozens later. You can also search for that company or product and delete pages of emails at a time because unsubscribing only stops them from coming in.
3. Keep Your Folders Simple
You don’t need a folder for every single category of life (unless that makes you happy). A few broad buckets will do:
- Action – things you need to reply to or handle.
- Waiting On – stuff you’re waiting to hear back about.
- Reference – receipts, travel plans, school info.
Keep it simple so you’ll actually use it.
4. The Two-Minute Rule
If you can reply, forward, or delete in under two minutes—just do it. Don’t let that email hang out rent-free for three days while it stares at you. Quick wins add up.
5. Schedule Email Time (and Protect It)
Constantly refreshing your inbox is exhausting. Instead, check it 2–3 times a day—morning, midday, and maybe evening. Treat those times like appointments, and give yourself permission to close out the app in between.
6. Use Search (Not Endless Scrolling)
Stop scrolling endlessly to “find that one thing.” Search by name, keyword, or date and save yourself the headache.
7. Celebrate Progress, Not Perfection
Inbox zero doesn’t mean your inbox stays empty forever—it means you’ve built a system that works for you. Even if it fills up again tomorrow, you know how to clear it. That’s what matters.
8. Unpopular Opinion
I’m not a big fan of those extra tabs like Promotions or Social. Honestly, it just feels like creating more inboxes to check—and who needs that? They fill up so fast that we either ignore them, mass-delete, or miss things altogether. If that’s the case, it probably means we need to be unsubscribing more often or making those quick deletes part of our routine. I’d much rather have everything come into one inbox so I can deal with it head-on and move on.
✨ Real talk: Organizing your email isn’t about chasing perfection—it’s about creating peace. It’s about not missing the important stuff because it’s buried under the junk. It’s about giving yourself back a little brain space in a season when you need it most.
👉 If you’re tired of feeling buried, I’d love to help you create systems like this that actually fit your real life (not some unrealistic productivity fantasy). Let’s chat.
💛
Nicole
Stay tuned for next week’s POP Talk!
This post may include affiliate links, which means I might earn a small commission if you make a purchase—at no extra cost to you. Regardless, I only share products and resources I genuinely love or find helpful!
