Overwhelmed? It Could be Your Inbox. Here's What to do.

Here's the scenario. You're responding to someone's email when another email comes in. It's from a store you like with a discount you like even better. Chances are you stop what you're doing, follow the link and go on a little rabbit trail that may or may not prove prudent. Then after a time, you get back to that email and have to think, 'ok, where was I?' You have to read over what you've written and will try to recollect the thought you had just before that other email came in. The struggle is real!

Focus is a huge issue these days. And we have FOMO so that makes it even more challenging. But your inbox doesn't have to be so demanding. If you didn't see that store email when you did, you could have remained focused. But you really wanted to see that email so what to do. If you use Outlook, did you know you can create rules for the emails that come through? Other email programs may have this feature too but if not, it's worth switching to Outlook to get it. It's a huge time saver.

Here's how it works. An email comes in from that store you like. Right click on it and scroll way down to the bottom of that list and select "Advanced Options" then "Create Rule". It's going to make an assumption that you want emails from that store to go to a different folder other than the Inbox so it asks, "Always move messages from ____ to this folder?" Yes, this is what you want so click on "select a folder". If you don't have a designated folder yet, create one. I created a folder called "Shopping Deals". Just make sure that folder is easy to find so you can check it often to see if any new emails have been sent there.

Repeat this process for any email sources that aren't urgent or important. It will save you lot's of brain energy. If you need more help to actually see how this works, I've got a video tutorial you can watch if you click here.