How a cluttered inbox is bad for you?

A cluttered inbox is the number one productivity killer. You get lost in the floods of emails, wasting time and energy you could have invested in your tasks. But this is not it. Here are the three reasons why a cluttered inbox is bad for you and what you should do:

1. Frequent context switch

The Zeigarnik effect states that you’re more likely to remember unfinished and interrupted tasks. It’s why you can’t resist the temptation to check the message when you get an email notification while in the middle of an important task.

Once you check your email, you’ll trap yourself in long minutes of back-and-forth replies and frequent context switching between the messages and your work, decreasing your job efficiency.

And even if you don’t check your email, you will be stressed about the message (“What is it?” “Is it important?”), which will distract you from working. On top of this, it takes close to 30 minutes to refocus each time you get distracted.

2. Increased email-induced anxiety leading to decreased productivity

How will you feel if you enter a room with physical clutter spread all over? I can’t even imagine.

Just like how physical clutter messes up your brain peace, digital clutter does the same. Overrun inboxes, constant notifications, and leaving in uncertainty over your emails will increase anxiety, ultimately decreasing your work concentration and productivity.

Add to this the feeling of guilt over leaving your emails unanswered and not being able to control your inbox, and it’s a recipe for disaster. You don’t want to overload your brain with these feelings while you’re working, do you?

3. Missing important messages

When you have hundreds of emails cluttering your inbox, you’ll likely miss the crucial emails of your colleagues and boss’. Worse, you’ll waste time and energy going through the cluttered inbox and finding the emails worthy of your attention.

Why not save your brain power instead for important tasks? By decluttering your inbox, you’ll control the inbox, and not the other way round. But how to do that?

Here’s Mailman with the magic:

a) Mailman lets you preset Do Not Disturb times. You can choose when you want it to hold back all your emails—so you can work without constant notification distractions, getting more done in less time with improved work efficiency.

b) Use Mailman’s delivery slots feature to receive emails only when you want to. Maybe you want to receive emails twice—one in the morning and one in the afternoon—to focus on your work.

Accordingly, you can set Mailman to manage emails and deliver them at hourly intervals, a set number of times per day, or at specific times.

c) Block unimportant email senders to receive only the necessary emails.

d) The best feature is the VIP feature. You can add important emails to the VIP list to bypass the above filters and receive their messages as soon as they are sent.

So, you now know how Mailman will help you keep yourself (and your inbox) sane, avoid distractions, and 10X your productivity.

Try it today.