Email. How many emails do you get every day? 100? 2,000?
It used to suck for me too. But it doesn’t have to. And inbox zero is totally achievable. Here’s my current inbox as I write this:
Years ago I decided I wasn’t the only one who could get junk out of my inbox.
Seeing a bunch of nonsense in my inbox that I have to archive, unsubscribe or copy/paste standard replies to, it drains me. I feel unproductive when I do these things.
It’s brain power and time that should have gone to troubleshooting, or analyzing, or idea-generating. Instead, it’s going into reading nonsense that I will get rid of anyway.
That’s why I have my OFS screen my emails.
She unsubscribes me to whoever used my email for newsletters and accounts I never signed up for.
She archives emails that don’t make sense to reply to.
She writes draft responses that I check and edit (if needed) before I send out the replies.
She doesn’t look into all my emails. I trained her on which email addresses she doesn’t need to check into, like emails from family or services that I actually use.
If she’s not sure about a particular email, she asks me about it, and I show her I want those emails managed.
She does it twice a day. Doesn’t take her more than 30 minutes at a time. It’s not a big thing, but it’s one of those things that saves me minutes. Maybe 20 minutes/day? It adds up.
Almost any VA or OFS could do this for you. If you want someone who has done it before, just use the search term: email management.
John