How to reduce the number of emails in your inbox

Plus a photo of my own email inbox. Not as cute as my usual cat photos but I think it has its own type of beauty.

Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here. 

Does your email inbox inspire feelings of dread? Do you look at your email and want to stress eat chocolate?

I remember clearly when my relationship with email started to change. I was a new department head and speaking with more experienced colleagues. The discussion quickly turned to the challenges of the role. The paperwork. The students. The faculty members. The Dean. And the emails. The shocking amount of email.

One chair described how a particular faculty member (“Dr. Curmudgeon”) emailed him constantly, with long diatribes about anything and everything. The multiple daily emails of complaints and invective were exhausting and made simply opening email an emotionally fraught activity. And so the chair came up with an innovative solution.

He created a rule to immediately redirect emails from Dr. Curmudgeon to a folder titled “Later”. Every few weeks, he would sit down with a glass of scotch and scan the folder contents, responding only to the emails that actually merited a response. 

Dr. Curmudgeon never knew the difference.

This story inspired me. How could I use automation to reduce my inbox? What I developed is today’s small thing to try immediately.

One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Create Email Rules 

This easy automation eliminates a good 20+ emails from my inbox per day and takes almost no time to set up. Here is how:

1. Learn how to create rules in your email application. This takes appropriately two minutes with a Google search. If you want more instruction, there is almost certainly a short YouTube instructional video out there for you.

2. Create a new folder titled “Cc emails”, and then create a rule to redirect the email to the folder. (If you weren’t important enough to merit the “to” line, the email isn’t important enough to merit your inbox.) 

3. Create a new folder titled “List emails.” Review your current inbox. For every list email that you wish to keep receiving (unsubscribe from those you don’t want), create a rule to redirect the email to that folder. As new list emails arrive, make it a habit to reroute them.

And that’s it! You can decide when you want to review the folders and ignore them the rest of the time. I review the List emails in the morning with my coffee, as many of them are newsletters that I want to read in a more leisurely manner. I check my Cc. folder midday and at the end of the day.

So, so easy. You have to try this.

Bonus tip: if you want to take email management to the next level and have a bit more time to invest in learning how to do so, be sure to check out the Stack email method. My personal email system combines the email rules I describe above, elements of the Stack method, and a few small tweaks to fit my own needs (see photo). The best solutions are bespoke solutions.

What is your own approach to email management? Please comment to let me know!

Chipping Away: What I Have Been Up To

A quick update on some of my own activities since my last newsletter, since I have your attention:

• I made it through a Canadian election without doing any media! In the 2019 federal election, I did a lot of media work. I felt it was my duty as a political scientist. In the 2020 Saskatchewan provincial election, I felt the same duty to do media work, but I struggled to fit it into my schedule given my then-new position. When the 2021 federal election was announced, I decided that media work was beyond the time I have available. So I said no to all requests and - shocker! - the election media coverage continued to go on just fine without me. 

• Most recent read: Who is Maud Dixon? If you like twisty plots, you might want to check this one out. I enjoyed it.

• While I continue to work from home most days, returning to campus periodically has been lovely. The autumn colours are gorgeous. I hope you are also enjoying the season.

Until next time…

Want even more easy ideas for email management? Be sure to check out this small idea to be more effective with email … by procrastinating. It works! And, of course, if you have yet to subscribe to Academia Made Easier, please do. Two emails a month with ideas to make work easier. Why not?

Stay well, my colleagues. 

P.S. You didn’t think I was going to get through a newsletter without mentioning cats, did you? No! Every day is better with cute animal photos, so here you are. As pretty as an empty inbox is, I think my no-longer-a-kitten Storm is even prettier. I hope you agree.

Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time on Twitter and binge-watching television, and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of University Affair’s Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.