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Unread Emails

I don’t know about you, but I have a ton of unread emails.

Mostly from blogs and people I subscribe to who send valuable, but non-urgent messages.

My current system is to read and reply to the urgent first, then start making my way down the non-urgent from newest to oldest.

This process has left me hovering between 800-1,000 non-urgent unread messages for what feels like years.

This week, however, I started a new process.

Instead of reading emails from the top of my inbox down… I’ve been sorting my inbox based on person or blog and reading all of the emails sent by them first… before going to the next person or blog and so on.

For example, this past week I read through all of my unread Daily Stoic emails and now I’m making my way down all of my unread Seth Godin emails.

This has been significantly more efficient because I don’t have to keep voice/tone/context changing as I read various messages from various people who are all writing in various different ways.

I can keep the same voice/tone/and context in mind and blast through a whole series of emails with much better retention and much less mental fatigue.

It’s like reading 20 pages of one book versus reading one page of 20 different books. The difference is remarkable.

Would recommend.


P.s. Know someone who might enjoy getting these emails? This is me kindly asking if you’d forward an email you liked to a person who you think would like it, too. Thanks :)

Published inArchivesBeing ProductiveThinking Clearly