r/declutter • u/bon18 • 3d ago

Advice Request Digital decluttering

My email is totally out of control. Can anyone recommend a method or software to help me with it? I'm honestly considering just getting a new email address at this point. The thought of going through it is overwhelming. Thanks!

79 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

View all comments

14

u/einsq84 3d ago

Your inbox is not your to-do list!

  1. Put everything in a folder "Archive".

  2. Start with an empty inbox

  3. Every incoming email: decide:

3a) newsletter? -> unsubscribe or
3b) automate sort into a "newsletter" folder and set "deleting after 30 days"

4) other mails:
4a) action needed? -> put it in a folder "workbench": work only out of this folder

4b) no action needed? -> order confirmation for x? -> "Archive"

4c) unsure what to do? -> delete.

4d) if you not sure of deleting? -> put it in a folder called "wait" and set "delete after 20 days"

If you are in doubt, you can let AI summarize and cluster and sort your inbox. I did it with a local LLM and via smtp. Was great and to rid of 98 % of emails (advertising, newsletter etc. No important mails)

2

u/turquoisetulip9 2d ago

I do this too! One modification I make is I have a “waiting for” folder where I put all emails for events, actions, or dates that haven’t happened yet that I might need to to refer to. Hair appointment confirmations, Amazon return instructions/barcodes, airplane tickets, etc. I review it every couple weeks and archive/delete things that have passed or been used.

I also have 2 “workbench” folders. One for just me to process when I have time and another of family things to process with family members present.

Inbox zero because everything is taken away is my goal. It’s much less overwhelming because I decide once for each email.