As busy Virtual Assistants, our inbox game has to be strong. If we cannot organise ourselves, then how can we organise anyone else? At PS Virtual, we tend to manage many Client in-boxes, as well as our own. Lets face it, clearing out in-boxes can be a laborious task. However, it is necessary in order to be more productive.

So you want to blast that inbox? Here is our very quick guide ( yes, believe it or not, this is all it takes) :

1. Organise by size – Normally our in-boxes get fuller quicker due to  large attachments that build up over the weeks.If you need to keep any of the large items, save them onto a memory stick or your desired location, and delete. This is a quick way to gain space.

2. Organise by sender – This way the junk mail will be brought to your attention , you can highlight and delete. Junk mail can often be the cause of a clogged inbox because it floods in so often in the blink of an eye.

3. Junk Mail – Moving onto this topic, junk mail can come in different forms.  If you buy something online or sign up for something the one time, you will be on their mail list until you remove yourself. To do this, open the email from said sender, scroll down to the bottom and in the small print there will be an option to ‘unsubscribe’. Sometimes, junk mail can filter through ‘mysteriously’ to our mailbox.  Organising by sender ( as above), will help you identify these immediately.

4. Sent items – Remember to do all of the above with your sent items too.

4. Deleted items -You have followed all our steps and feel productive, however, do not forget that deleting once only moves the item to the deleted items. You must then go to deleted items, and delete those. This way all items will be permanently deleted. Enough use of the word deleted ? 🙂

Now, onto that deadline….