A life hack to escape email hell

After reading this post, we’ll see:

• What is the laundry method.

• Why you should know about it.

• How you can use it to escape email hell.

TL; DR;

Treat email like laundry. It will help you make time for what matters.

Your emails are crushing you.

It’s like trying to drink from a fire hose.

You spend all day with mails, but make no progress.

It’s impossible to keep up. Important messages get lost.

The stats are shocking:

• An employee gets 121 emails and sends 40 emails / day.

• They spend 2.6 hours per day ( 30 % of their time ) on emails.

• They check emails every 6 minutes. This leads to burnout and reduced productivity.

I have the perfect medicine for you:

The laundry method

I learnt it from Laura Mae Martin. She’s Google’s executive productivity advisor ( and author of “ Uptime “ ).

The book is amazing. I recommend it 100%.

Her system is simple + brilliant:

Treat email like laundry.

The analogy

When doing laundry, you DON’t go in this order:

• Pick clean shirt.

• Fold it.

• Switch to messy clothes.

• Mix them with clean clothes.

• Go back to the shirt...

So why do you do it with emails?

Clean = processed emails.

Messy = unread emails.

Step 1: empty the dryer.

Process email in batches (not whenever you want). This is the mindset shift. The idea is simple.

But it takes discipline to follow.

Create a recurring calendar slot “ Empty inbox “.

The aim = touch each email just once. No more.

How?

Step 2: Sort into laundry baskets.

Move each mail into one of these categories:

• Read: You should read. But needs no other action.

• Review: Needs a follow - up from you or someone else.

• Respond: Needs your response.

In this step, you’re sorting ( not doing anything else).

Step 3: Batch - process each bucket.

Create calendar slots for each category.

e.g.

• “ Read “ during downtime.

• “ Respond” in a focussed session.

• “ Review ” as needed.

Experiment with the slots ( and time between them).

Key steps

Rules & filters: e.g. notifications go to their own folders. Highlight emails from your boss.

Touch emails once: Remember the laundry analogy. The aim should be to either sort or work on them - not both.

That’s it!!

I hope this concept helps you escape email hell . If you found this helpful, share with someone who will benefit.

Further reading:

• Google's Laura Mae Martin on How to Be Productive

P.S: Did you like this idea? Let me know. I personally respond to each mail.