I Discovered Something Stupid I've Been Doing. Do You Do It Too?
Yesterday morning I thought I'd catch up on emails. But for some reason, instead of going to my inbox, I decided I would see what was in the STARRED section.
Oh man, there were literally thousands of emails I had put there and never done anything with. Some had red stars, which I figured meant I once thought they were important. Some had other colors, and I had also made liberal use of the question mark icon. There were also quite a few, like notices of books being held for me at the public library, that I had in fact done something with but had never bothered to get rid of.
I started with the most recent emails, but immediately I could see that I wouldn't get far before lunch. So what the heck, I decided to live bravely and go back in history. I hit the little arrows and got back about 500 emails out of those thousands. Well, that seemed far enough back, so I went to the bottom of 500 and began looking at titles. There were answers to my 2018 holiday letters, emails where someone tried to sell me something by telling me to hurry up, free trials, and so on. Yikes.
Now Here's the Not So Stupid Part
I found that if I stayed at the bottom of my gmail screen and glanced at the titles, I could delete most of the stars. Once in a while, I had to open one to see what it was, but even then, I mostly just kept them, without the stars.
I probably could have deleted a lot of them, but that would have taken me a lot more time, to open the emails. I sure didn't want to delete any of the darling photos of relatives.
So I just deleted the stars. I thought I would finish yesterday, but grocery shopping took priority. But I only have a few hundred left! And I think I will stop using stars.
But if I do, will I just leave stuff in my email list until I do it? Maybe.
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Emails can be so overwhelming. I do the same thing. For me, starred emails are often like putting leftovers in the refrigerator. That way when they spoil, I don't feel bad throwing them out. When emails get way too old, you don't feel bad about carefully deleting.
Adorable pix though.
~Debbi
I look at things I flagged from a while back, but, ultimately, I have to do the same thing, Rosana!
Jeff
Hi Rosana
I created LABELS for certain topics: Friends, Dentist, Receipts, etc. Then I've created FILTERS, so that all emails from my friends are automatically receiving the "Friends" label, etc. (In my Inbox list, it has a little label in front of the Subject that says "Friends". You can of course name the Labels to your needs.
If I have to check emails in a hurry, I just hit the Friends label and can immediately see whether there is something that I need to pay attention to. That will also ensure that you won't loose any of those precious photos or emails. ;-)
It also makes it easy to delete emails later on, since if it doesn't have a label, I know that I probably won't miss it one its gone.
Hope it helps! ;-)
Sharlee (Chocolate IceCream)
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I absolutely use the Stars ⭐️ to make a note to myself that I need to refer back to those emails. It helps me when I have to go back and find an important email! Only because I don’t spend my time keeping my email cleaned up. Too much email I receive is relevant but not necessarily in the moment. But I certainly understand where you’re coming from.