Hi Reader, I currently have 5 email addresses that I am in charge of. 4 are business and 1 is personal. At the end of each week, my goal is to have as all emails, in all email boxes attended to. What's my plan to achieve this goal?

Part of my Principles are focused on simplifying all that I do as much as I can, being honest and authentic with myself and others, and with all that, always looking for ways to be more efficient and effective.

I am a highly organized person. Part of this persona, is to create and maintain a dedicated place for all the things in my Life, Leadership and Business. It reduces clutter, it makes cleaning up easier, it reduces mental load lost in trying to remember where I placed things.

How This Works With my Email Inbox

I created folders that would help me simplify reading, filing, deleting and attending to activities in the emails, in an efficient and effective way. This also helped me reduce the time that I spent reading, addressing and responding to emails.

When emails come through, I attend to them straight away if it is an easy response and follow-through:

• If I need to do some more thinking about the email, I hold on to it for a few days, until I am ready to respond. I usually attend to them before end of the week.
• If I can't attend to the actions that some of the emails that comes through straight away, I make sure I find time to action what needs to be done before the following week.

For emails that I need to attend to, but also need to keep for future reference, I place them in the already created folder, or I create folders on the go, for any new topics:

• This leaves my inbox empty and ready for the week ahead.
• At the end of 6-12 months, I revisit each of the filed emails and remove anything that may be 2-3 years old and is no longer needed and or relevant.

How to Use your Principles, Values and Purpose to Declutter Your Emails

The clearer your Principles, Values and Purpose are as you go along, the easier it is for you to Define clear goals; Design aligned pathways to support your goals; and Display the actions and behaviors that help you represent your true Self.

If things are not in order, I am not productive. And if I am not productive, I feel like I am doing injustice to myself and to others. The more efficient I am, the easier it is to have even more time to create and focus on the things I really want to be involved in.

When you know what your goals are, it makes it easy to make decisions and respond accordingly in the emails that come through. Knowing your purpose and your goals cuts out a lot of the noise so you can concentrate on what is truly important for you.

Here are some of the things you can do to have inbox hygiene:

Define with more clarity

• Define your values and your principles
• What do you know to be true of yourself? What makes you productive and efficient?
• What is helpful for you, to make sure that you are making room for your purpose and your goals?

Design clear roadmaps

• Look at the nature of emails that comes through. Is there a common theme? If so, these themes can be a start to creating names for folders which will help you easily find the emails when you need to revisit them.
• Create folders for each type of email. For example, for business, are there emails. from HR or from Accounts or about Sales or Marketing? Create a folder for that.
• Look through the emails you have right now and delete all the ones you don't need anymore. Or if there are ones you want to keep, file them away for future reference.
• When you file them for future reference, make a note in your diary for a time that you want to come back to them so that they are not just filed away for the sake of being filed away.

Display aligned habits

• You don't have to do all this in one sitting. Dedicate 20 minutes each day to tidy your inbox up. Even if it is just 3 to 5 emails. Small consistent bits compound over time.

Everything has and is Energy.

Holding on to things you don't use anymore, whether it is emails, clothes, gadgets, or anything in your life that is not aligned to your purpose, goals and or values, energetically drags you down.

It makes you fall behind, cause cognitive overload - which as a leader, business owner and or entrepreneur - is one of the biggest cause of burnout and with that, making misaligned decisions more often than not, i.e. Decision Fatigue.

Release and let go what no longer serves you, so you can make room for what does serve you. Having a clean email box allows you to be on top of those important relevant emails that you can attend to freely without feeling the overwhelm of all the others in your inbox.

Go beyond the inbox even. What other 'boxes', both literally and figuratively need cleaning out? Are there any loose ends that need to be attended to before the year is out?

Time Management IS Life Management.

I get that there is a mad rush at the moment to finish work for the year, get ready for Christmas, buy gifts, visit family and all of the stuff that comes with the season.

Either find a quiet time during the week, just 20 minutes, to start clearing out what doesn't serve you. Before you go and buy that gift, file, give or donate something away. Make room for what is coming. Including clearing out your desktop.

Make use of 'quiet' periods of time. For example, you know that time just after Christmas and right before New Year? Use that time to attend to all that needs to be let go, and or filed away. Plan for it and schedule it now. What gets scheduled, gets done. Only 20 minutes a day.

The more you release the physical clutter, the more you are releasing the mental clutter, and also revealing what may need to be attended to at subconscious level, or what you need to remember of your wonderful self that may be buried around 'busy-ness'. This is really about making time to honor you.

We Become What We Tolerate Inside of Us

In the Chinese zodiac, we are coming up to The Year of the Horse, which symbolizes Freedom, Energy, and Independence. The cultural significance is that it represents Strength, Perseverance & Forward Momentum, encouraging Bold Action and the Pursuit of Dreams.

Listen into the excuses you are giving yourself when it comes to cleaning and clearing our Your Inbox, Desktop and other Boxes. It may sound tedious right now, but remember, as we addressed in last week's article, every day is the first day of the rest of your life.

The coaching programs, courses and containers I have created, support, one week at a time, to align all of who we are, do and say, with our trues selves.

At the same time we release and let go what no longer serves us at conscious and subconscious level, so we can embrace our super-conscious for elevated life, leadership and business goals. Where you need support, let me know. Just fill out this form and I will reach out to connect and explore where you are at, and how I can support you.

Are Online Working Groups Something that Would be Helpful for you?

I am exploring the idea of starting Online Working Groups, where we all go online once a week, or once a fortnight for 75 to 90 minutes at a time, to work on something aligned to your individual goals. The group will be an accountability space where you work in the background on the tasks you have been putting off.

I will also make time to address one or two coaching questions so you leave with some insights to fuel your progress each week, month or quarter. What do you think? Is that something you would join? How would you like it to look like? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Just respond to this email with the title: Working Group, in the subject line, and I will send you a quick link to my calendar for a quick call to explore your thoughts on this. In the meantime, Happy cleaning out and clearing out your Email Inbox, Desktop and other 'files' and 'folder'.

With love and light

Coach B 🌟