Breaking The Shackles Of Email Slavery

By Rohan Leo

I hadn't considered myself a slave to my inbox... The lies I would tell myself and the amount of time it consumed was ridiculous. The inner dialog I would have with myself, "I am much to busy to deal with that email... " or "Sign up, It will be important when you have your ducks in a row." And so it went on... I was getting so many emails a day, my information paralysis kicked in, and with all the other things I had on the go. I was getting over whelmed.

The intent for clearing my inbox came to me by 'accident' one day.

It all started with my search for a Virtual Assistant. There's lots of work being an entrepreneur and growing an online business, starting a mobile app business while working as a cameraman and video editor, and having time with friends and family. I needed and wanted help. Somethings I wasn't made to do and it was taking up time and I wasn't making any money from it. Working in my business was turning out, a bad idea... It was time stand back and work ON it. One day, I was going through Chris Ducker's blog, learning how to work with VA's and what tasks to delegate.

Email management and filtering is a task. Awesome!! My email woes are over and I was making major advancements in breaking my addiction. The first thing I needed to do was go through my inbox and make sure I didn't have any sensitive information I didn't want sharing. A persons email is a private place, a part of you, and scary handing it over to a stranger.

It took me a day or so in hours to sit, with focus and intent, deleting, unsubscribing and archiving emails starting with the oldest first. I have been on inbox clearing sprees in the past... This time however, was on another level. By the time I got near 1000 emails down I noticed something interesting... Instead of selecting the emails I wanted to keep. Changing my strategy, I would select all, start un-select the emails I wanted to keep and mass delete whatever remained. My mind physically relaxing, as the weight of holding on to useless emails lifted. Becoming easier to delete as I went, and I was becoming honest with myself. It was the monotony, the reality I admitted, I wasn't going to miss 90% of the emails in my inbox. Bar the real important ones of course (which landed up in my archive folder, hidden for when I need them), everything else... gone!!! It's liberating to see an inbox go from under 7000 emails to a few 100 to 0.

As of today I have 8 emails in my inbox, and I sit no longer than 1 hour a day dealing with email and that's including my or 6 accounts.

I have help with a few Gmail plugins and tools which help, me maintain my inbox, with an awesome tip from Chris Ducker.

This new freedom that I have is awesome, though I still get an urge to check my email all the time. That urge is decreasing though because every time I log in to see if I have mail, there's nothing that takes up time. Email loneliness kicks in when logging in often, so, I let the time pass between log-ins to, "feel more important" with more in my inbox... haha. The real funny thing is... I found it WAY easier to stop smoking than controlling my email log-in frequency.

http://chrisducker.com

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