Do this whenever you get an email you don’t need to read. It may feel overwhelming at first, but once you get started you’ll notice an impact immediately.
- Unwanted subscriptions – just unsubscribe from all of the things you have no use for. Gmail makes it easy.
- Unwanted notifications – go to the source of the notifications, look for sections called “Settings” or “notifications” and make sure they are all turned off, both “push” and “email” notifications. (If, in the future, you find you will need them, you can always put them back.)
- Stuff you might want to keep just in case – archive it immediately. If these follow a pattern (e.g. all the emails from a particular sender, or with a specific subject heading) you can use labels and filters to keep them organized and ready for when you are.
Now, there will be emails that you don’t need to look at immediately, but that you will need to take action on. You can use labels and filters to handle these, which I’ll cover in another post.