Email Tip: Work Through Your Inbox Messages in Order

Does this sound familiar? You open your inbox, and see a bunch of messages. You scan them up and down. Then you pick one to open. Perhaps you handle it, perhaps you decide you need to save it for later, or that it is too time consuming to deal with now. Then you scroll again, choosing another “victim” for your attention.
You’re wasting precious time by doing this.

Instead, try this:  view each email, in order, from top to bottom, or bottom to top. Resist the temptation to “pick and choose” the next e-mail you will view.  Why?  Because picking and choosing wastes time. 

The key is to NOT move to the next message until the first message has been moved or deleted from you inbox. Deleted because its spam, or was a quick notice. Moved to an e-file for triaging later.

It takes some discipline to do this, but the rewards are huge. Try it!