Getting to Inbox Zero (Or Pretty Fucking Close)
3 easy steps toward that glorious goal
I once helped a Good Morning America producer get 13,000 emails out of her inbox in one day. Would you like to know how we did it?
THEN YOU ARE IN LUCK.
Today’s NFG tip email is all about, well, dealing with your email. And while I realize that attaining actual “inbox zero” is a lofty goal in this day and age, it is possible to get pretty fucking close. I promise.
Herewith a three-step method from my book Get Your Shit Together that will render your inbox lean and mean.
(And keep it that way.)
Paid subscribers to No F*cks Given® get weekly tips—on topics like setting boundaries, time management, motivation and productivity, building confidence, problem-solving, and more—PLUS access to the NFG Chat and other exclusive perks!
NFG Tip: The Purge
Step 1: DELETE, DELETE, DELETE!
We begin with ruthless deletion because a) it feels good and b) it’s so fucking easy. You just sit there with your down arrow key and trash icon fingers ready to stamp out expired airfare deals, Weight Watchers at Work sign-up sheets, and junk mail that you inexplicably didn’t delete the moment it arrived.
Were you planning to respond to that nice Nigerian man who asked you to wire him $300,000? I thought not.
If you wanna get real sexy with this step, sort by sender before you begin your deleting frenzy and you’ll be able to eradicate ALL the useless/irrelevant/past-due emails from a single sender in a single stroke. For example—and with apologies to any HR reps out there—I have never once received an email from HR that needed to be stored in my inbox or anywhere else.
Step 2: FILE, FILE, FILE!
Any self-respecting email program comes with an “add new folder” feature, and if you’re not making use of it, you’re missing out on blissing out to a tidy inbox.
For messages that no longer require action, but that you want/need to hold on to for posterity/future reference, just create a folder and file that shit away. My email folders have names like “Speaking invites,” “Fan mail,” “Legal,” “Germany,” and “Miscellaneous.” (That last one functions like a virtual junk drawer for stuff I may rarely but one day urgently need, like superglue or that list of Paris restaurant recs that my fancy food critic friend sent me back in 2016.)
Step 3: REPLY, REPLY, REPLY!
Finally, it’s Reply Time. This is what you’ve been avoiding all along, telling people you “never got that email” or “haven’t had time to look at it”—because you either legit didn’t see it hiding among those 12,999 other messages or because you prioritized a lengthy back-and-forth with your friend Sharla about your UTI symptoms over, you know, “actual work” or “a timely RSVP to your brother-in-law’s retirement party.”
Time to pour yourself a nice tall glass of cranberry juice and bang ’em out.
Once separated from the herd, most of your “Shit, I really need to deal with that” emails should be pretty easy to spot and wrangle. But if you come across a particular message that’s going to take extra thought/time to respond to, just set it aside and schedule that reply as a single task on your Must-Do List for the week.
And that’s it. That’s really all you—and that GMA producer, bless her heart—need to do to make your way to Inbox Zero (or thereabouts).
Remember the three steps:
Butt in the seat. Delete, delete, delete!
Go the extra mile. File, file, file!
Don’t be that guy. Reply, reply, reply!
Once you get there, you can flex your newfound purging skills on a daily or weekly basis to ensure you’ll never have to climb Mt. Thirteen Thousand ever again.
Trust me, it’s much easier to breathe down here.
A bit about me: I spent 15 years as a book editor in NYC before quitting that career to pursue a freelance life (a decision that involved a lot of red wine and a lot of tears). In 2015 I had the idea for my first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck. And people loved it, so I kept writing! Today my sweary self-help series includes Get Your Shit Together, Calm the Fuck Down, Grow the Fuck Up, and more, with 3 million copies in print all over the world. You can also find me on Instagram, where my content skews tropical (in addition to quitting my job, I quit New York entirely and moved to a small fishing village in the Dominican Republic), plus food, cocktails, travel, and cats. So many cats.
So many people are surprised when they see my clean and organized inbox. I can’t function with too many emails clogging up everything, it gives me anxiety lol. I’m going to come back to work after 3 weeks off and I bet I’ll be inbox zero in less than an hour due to these great tips!
Sometimes if I notice the overwhelm with too many to read and or delete I’ve selected ALL of the thousands of UNREAD emails and with one click just selected READ. Tick a box. All stressors removed. ✅
I’ve got too little time left to live without worrying about emails. Try just walking away.
Zero f#cks.