Tips to hack your email better

The first stage of any email strategy is to stop any unnecessary email from getting into your inbox in the first place. When I said I get perhaps hundreds of emails a day, I deceived a bit — most of those emails never make it to the inbox. They go straight to the spam folder or the trash. You only want the essential emails in your inbox, or you’ll be overwhelmed.

How to Outsource the Inbox and Never Check Email Again

Here are the steps:

1. Determine exactly which accounts you will use and how you want them to respond to (or just categorize or purge) email for you

2. Find a virtual assistant. See “The Personal Outsourcing Olympics: Bangalore Butler or American Assistant?” and “Extreme Personal Outsourcing” for tips and providers.

3. Test for reliability before skill-set. Have the top three candidates do something on tight deadline (24 hours) before hiring them and letting them in your inbox.

4. Use a probationary period of 2-4 weeks to test the waters and work out the problems. Again: there will be problems. It will take a good 3-8 weeks to get to real smooth sailing.

5. Design your ideal lifestyle and find something to do other than let your brain fester in the inbox. Fill the void.