Why You Shouldn't Feel Guilty About Deleting Emails

by Glenn Fisher

It’s a reoccurring problem...

How do you deal with the information overload of the modern world?

No doubt your inbox is as full as mine, and with so many people vying for your attention how do you cope?

Expert entrepreneur Michael Masterson recently offered an option...

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Why you shouldn’t feel guilty about deleting emails

Michael’s first step comes from Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Work Week and it’s that you shouldn’t feel guilty...

From Ferris: "Recognize that you receive too much information. It’s not your fault. Just accept that there is more information than time, and that it's increasing every day."

Michael goes on to explain that Ferriss offers "three ways to deal with e-mail overload. You can ‘live by reaction’ and feel increasingly stressed and confused. You can opt out by not reading anything. Or you can practice ‘bit literacy’ by getting ‘some information - the right information - without trying to get all of it.’"

The third option is, in my opinion, the best way to go. And to some degree it’s what I already do.

My job requires that I sign up to receive a whole host of e-letters and bulletins so that I can whittle through them and let you know about the good ones.

Frankly though, some of what I receive is appalling and largely pointless. This stuff, as Michael suggests, should be ditched straight off the bat.

But that still leaves you with a ton of stuff, a more manageable ton, but still enough to stress out your inbox.

So, of this good stuff, Michael explains that "you can then divide the good stuff into ‘worth scanning’ and ‘solid gold’."

"E-mails worth scanning," says Michael, "are from sources that reliably deliver at least some relevant information."

Whereas...

"Solid-gold e-mails are from those rare sources that provide useful tips and insights every single time."

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I have a few solid gold emails that I always read. But whereas Michael suggests reading these first, what I do personally is put these to the side.

Because I am confident the information in them will be useful and informative, I want to give them the time they deserve.

It’s the ‘worth scanning’ emails that I go through first. Quickly scanning them to see if there’s something inside the email that could warrant it being promoted (on this occasion) to solid gold status.

If a scan fails to pull anything out of the email; it’s deleted.

It’s then time to turn to the ‘solid golds’ and read them, making notes if appropriate or filing them away for later reference.

Get the idea and then get outta there

However, what’s to be done if you’re still being drowned in email, even though you’ve been so selective?

Michael has an answer:

"Follow the Power of One rule. Scan your solid-gold e- mails until you find one good and useful idea - an idea you can implement immediately. Then stop reading."

He goes on: "Remember, you don’t have to know everything - or even most of what there is to know - to succeed at most endeavours. There are hundreds of ways to make money on the Internet, for example, but you can easily make a six-figure income by using only a few of them."

So, on reading through the email, once you hit upon an inspiring idea you’re done and you can get on with putting that idea into action.

Hopefully you’ll notice that on most occasions, Shortcut Bulletin itself focuses on one idea. I do so intentionally.

I understand that your time is valuable and you haven’t got time to be reading through a load of different ideas each day...

I aim for this email to be something you can read in about five minutes and once you’ve finished reading you’ll have a piece of information or an idea that you can take away and implement in your life (and maybe you’ll be entertained a bit too).

I certainly hope that’s how it works for you.

So, to prevent information overload today we’ll call it the end here and I’ll let you tackle your own inbox...

Remember: get rid of the rubbish (and don’t feel guilty), sort the good into ‘worth scanning’ and ‘solid gold’, pick up one important idea, and then get outta there!