fbpx Skip to main content

Tips for Staying on Top of Your Inbox

By April 5, 2021Email, Tech Tip
Tips for cleaning out your inbox

How to Get the Junk Out of Your Inbox

Are you drowning under all the email you get in your inbox every day? Is it tough to sift out the relevant emails from the spam? Are you missing important work emails from your employees, co-workers, or clients?

Here are some tips on how to cut out the spam, irrelevant emails, and other detritus clogging up your inbox. A lot of this junk comes from years of giving out your email address when you sign up for accounts and services, ranging from your email address being sold, to mailing lists you once signed up for but are no longer interested in now.

Do these tips for a few weeks and see how your inbox looks then.

  1. First, start unsubscribing. Look for the unsubscribe link or button on any repeating emails that you don’t want to be on. Multiple emails every day from that vendor that sold you software years ago? Unsubscribe. Never actually read that newsletter you signed up for? Unsubscribe.Unsubscribe from emails you don't want
  2. No unsubscribe button? Block! If you’re on somebody’s mailing list or they’re sending you marketing emails, they’re required by law to provide an unsubscribe button (per CAN-SPAM). If there isn’t one, report emails as spam and block the address.
  3. Cut out the repeat offenders. If you get put back on lists you unsubscribed from or you are not removed within a reasonable time limit as requested – report those emails as spam too. U.S. businesses are required to provide an opt-out method and remove you from their list within 10 business days, per CAN-SPAM. The sender’s policy says you’ll be removed within 30 days? Well, tough luck. That’s an unreasonably long time.
  4. Stop spam senders ASAP. If spam emails make it past your spam filter and inbox filter… you guessed it, report it as spam or mark it as junk. In Outlook you can do this quickly by right-clicking on the email and going to Junk > Block Sender.Mark email as spam and block senders to get junk out of your inboxOther email clients and providers like Gmail also provide similar ways to mark unwanted email as spam or junk, often with the click of a single button.If your business’s spam filter gives you easy controls at the bottom of each email, block the sender or the domain.Block email addresses or domains in your spam filter
  5. Reduce notifications. Are you getting regular notifications from online services, platforms, communication groups, etc.? Maybe you’re in LinkedIn Groups and getting daily digest emails of what’s posted in the group. If you’re not reading them, turn off these notifications or switch them to less frequent emails like weekly digests.
  6. Highlight the important emails. And finally: once you’re cutting out the unwanted, unhelpful emails, use your inbox tools to mark important emails that you need to act on or follow-up on. In Outlook you can flag and add reminders to emails – great visual cues in your inbox of which emails are important. In Gmail you can star emails and mark them as priority. Need to actually separate large amounts of email into folders that are easier to handle? Use inbox rules to send important emails to special folders.

It doesn’t have to be hard

The important thing is you don’t have to spend a lot of time on unsubscribing or junking emails. These two tools should be quick and obvious to find and use on every piece of email you get from outside sources. And if you do these two actions frequently enough, muscle memory will take over.

In the future, keep a tight grip on what emails and notifications you want when you opt-in to online services or make online accounts. This will help keep your inbox from flooding again.


Recent Posts / View All Posts

Compliance

IT Compliance and Why It Is Important for Your Business

| Business Productivity, Managed Services, Security | No Comments
In running a business, there are a lot of important matters that need to be taken care of. Even if they are not really in line with the core competencies of the business. One such matter is IT compliance. In the last few weeks, we have been talking about compliance and how it is important to your business. What Is IT Compliance? One of our recent blogs gives a brief but enlightening overview of what IT compliance is all about. In a nutshell, it is the process of complying with the rules, regulations and requirements set by a third party, which aim…
Achieving Compliance

Achieving Compliance as a Team

| Business Productivity, Security | No Comments
Before your company can fully comply with all the requirements set by third parties like regulatory bodies and clients, there are dozens upon dozens of tasks that need to be completed. These tasks are spread across different areas of the company and are impossible for just one individual to accomplish. The process of achieving compliance would require a fast and thorough team of compliance specialists. Vital Matters to Discuss when achieving compliance In most cases achieving compliance failures can be attributed to a lack of planning and communication. To avoid these problems, bring your compliance team together right from the…
IT Security

What Is IT Security and IT Compliance?

| Business Productivity, Security, Tech Tip | No Comments
IT security and IT compliance are two essential matters for any business or organization. Many people think they are the same, while others frequently confuse one for the other. They are not the same thing, but when implemented together, they can provide maximum digital safety and minimize the risk of data breaches and other online threats. In this article, we’ll explain which is which and why both require your attention. What Is IT Security? As the term implies, IT security refers to ensuring the security of a company’s or organization’s IT infrastructure. When creating a security strategy for your business,…