Did you know that the average person spends 6.3 hours a day checking email?
That’s right, more than 6 hours dealing with email.
That doesn't leave a whole lot of time to work on more important tasks or your very big goals.
Or maybe meeting with your most important people or your most important customers.
Well, today I want to show you a very simple technique to reduce the amount of email that hits your inbox.
Our inbox is usually the primary folder that we spend most of our time in.
This is where all of our new email shows up.
This is where we're responding and replying and dealing with the majority of our email.
But sometimes you receive email that is less important.
And maybe quite frequently you receive email from a particular sender or maybe even something that’s particular to the subject line.
And I'm going to show you how to make that email avoid hitting the inbox and instead have it appear somewhere else that you can check on your own time.
Somewhere else where you can check on your own terms.
So to do this, we want to start by creating a new folder.
At the top of the menu, you'll see the folder option.
We select new folder and I'm going to name this folder “Less Important.”
This isn’t stuff that is junk mail.
This isn’t stuff that I want to get rid of or unsubscribe to.
It’s just things that I don’t need to see immediately as soon as they enter my email client.
I don’t need to see it right away.
I’d like to check it maybe once a day or even some of these things just once a week.
I just want to glance at it, stay on top of it, but I don’t need to see it immediately.
Now, you can create this new folder in any of these areas down below.
I want to actually create it at the top level under my email address.
So I'm going to select that option there.
I'm going to hit OK.
And you can see over here on the left-hand side of the screen I have a “Less Important” folder.
Let me just drag that up here to my favorites area.
This is sort of my primary work area here.
So now I've got a “Less Important” folder.
Something that I can go look at and find an email that is not crucial.
That I need to lay my eyes on it immediately.
Of course, I've got nothing in there just yet.
We’ve just created the folder at this point.
So the second step is to find or identify email that is less important.
Things that you don’t need to see immediately.
And let's say, for example, this one here is a sender that you know I like the stuff they’re sending me.
I enjoy reading it once in a while.
But I certainly don’t need to see it as soon as it hits my inbox.
So to automatically send this message to this folder so it doesn’t appear in my inbox, you simply right-click on the message.
And if you scroll down, you’ve got plenty of options.
We want to go to Rules and at the very top, we see an option “Always move messages from this sender.”
The sender is right there in the name.
I’m going to click on that option.
It’s going to open up a dialogue.
And here we can select where we want to put that email.
Where do you want to send it?
Well, here is the “Less Important” folder that we just created.
I’m going to select that.
I’m going to say OK.
And now it’s already done the work for me.
You can see it actually sent that email.
And if I click on the “Less Important” folder, there it is.
It’s in that “Less Important” folder now.
For this example, we’ve just moved this existing message.
But going forward, any new email that I receive from this sender is going to show up here directly and not hit my inbox.
I will no longer receive messages from that sender here where I’m doing my day-to-day, where I’m doing my most serious work.
The emails and messages that I want to see right away.
Instead, I can come to my “Less Important” folder and see what’s there.
Come back to it once in a while, maybe it’s daily, maybe it’s every couple of days, and check on what has come in that time.
Now one other hint I’ll show you here is that it can be helpful to see how many messages are in my “Less Important” folder.
You’ll see that’s pretty standard in some of the other folders.
Inbox shows three, which indicates messages that I have not read yet.
If there’s a bracket around it, it means that’s the number of total messages that are in that folder.
So we want to right-click on the folder itself.
And if you go all the way down, you’ll see the option is Properties.
Clicking on Properties gives me two radio buttons: “Show the number of unread items” or “Show the total number of items.”
So currently it’s set by “Show number of unread items.”
That’s why there’s no number there.
I’ve already read it.
I’ve already opened up this email.
I’m going to select the second option “Show total number of items.”
I’m going to hit Apply.
I’m going to hit OK.
And now you can see there’s a small bracket with a number one.
So now I can go about my day.
I can spend most of my time in my inbox.
And then I can look over here and say, “Oh, you know what? I’ve received something in my ‘Less Important’ folder.”
Oh, there’s only one; that’s fine.
I’ll go check on it tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon.
But maybe when this number reaches something like 10 or 12, then I’ll want to open it up and start browsing what is in this folder.
And when I’m done with it, I can delete it.
I can archive it.
I can move it somewhere else.
But a great way to move things from your inbox.
Now if you want to move something that is beyond just a sender, of course, you can make that change as well.
Maybe there’s a particular subject line that if it appears in the subject line, you also want to move it to that “Less Important” folder.
This can often be the case of certain newsletters or maybe it’s an application that you work with and they send you automated notifications.
Often those notifications aren’t very urgent.
Things that you might want to browse or you might want to make yourself aware of.
But you certainly don’t need to see them immediately when they hit that.
So let’s take this email as an example.
And let’s say I don’t want to see anything that has “Pumpkin” in it.
I’m just going to use that as my example.
Anything that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line, I don’t want to see it.
So again, we’re going to right-click it.
We’re going to select Rules.
But instead of saying “Always move messages from this sender,” that’s not what I want to do.
I still want to receive some messages from this sender in my inbox.
What I want to do is select the “Create Rule” option.
We’re going to get a different dialogue box.
And here we have a few different choices.
On the top half, it says “When I get email with all of the selected conditions.”
You make your selections here.
The second half says “Do the following.”
So if this, then do that.
And then we’re going to say OK.
So in this example, I want to deal with the subject line.
So I’m going to select the “Subject contains” box.
It’s already pre-populated this with the exact subject line for this email.
But that’s much too specific.
I just want things with “Pumpkin” in the subject line.
So I’m going to delete the rest of this subject.
I’ve just got “Pumpkin.”
So when I get an email with all of the selected conditions, all email that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line, please move it to the “Less Important” folder.
And you can select a different folder if you need to.
But I’m going to stick with my “Less Important” folder.
I’m going to select OK.
The rule “Pumpkin” has been created.
Now I’ve got a choice: do I want to run this rule now or do I just want to leave everything where it is?
I’m going to select Run for this example and say OK.
And there you see that message has moved as well.
“Less Important” folder now has two items.
There is my message with “Pumpkin” in it.
And now going forward, any email that I receive that has “Pumpkin” in the subject line will no longer appear in my inbox.
It’s going to appear in my “Less Important” folder.
So consider some of the senders that you do want to see their email.
You would like to review their email but you never or rarely need to see it immediately.
Or do you have certain automated or regular emails that have a repetitive subject line?
Again, same circumstance: you don’t need to see it right away.
If you can try to reduce the number of things that hit your inbox, you can drastically reduce the amount of time you spend with your email.
So create a “Less Important” folder.
You can name it to help you stay productive.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.
In fact, it’s very simple.
