Today, go through your in box in your e-mail, and organize by date. Anything that’s more than six months old that hasn’t been addressed and is unimportant, delete now! The additional clutter of overstuffed e-mail boxes causes many of us heartache and dismay, even at a subconscious level, every time we open our e-mail box. What we want is open space and the ability to respond, immediately, to requests, new items, or ongoing items. There is no need to hold on to a bunch of e-mail. Your friends and associates are still your friends and associates, and your partners and clients will continue to be your partners and clients, even if you delete their “hello and what’s up?” e-mail message. So, here’s a quick tip for today to clean up your e-mail boxes:

1) Delete or back up any mailboxes that are no longer current or refer to finished projects. If you must maintain an archive record, export your mailbox contents to a file and back up that file on disk.

2) Check your in-box: how many messages are there? Delete or file away NOW so that there are half that many messages within the next ten minutes: delete any old circulation announcements, listservs of groups that you’re not interested in, and spams, forwards, or requests from people you do not know, folders or files of pictures, chain letters, and news items.

3) While you’re at it, scroll to the bottom of each listserv e-mail that you don’t like or utilize and UNSUBSCRIBE so you no longer receive these mails.

Come back when you’re done deleting emails. . . . .

Really! Go through and delete at least 20. Sound easy?

Okay, delete 45 e-mails that you haven’t read and don’t plan to read. . . . .

There! Doesn’t that feel good? Congratulations!

When we get rid of messages that we no longer need, or that we are not interested in, we clear a path for messages we do want to receive. Make sure you fulfill your obligations, but if an e-mail is just sitting there, it is taking up valuable space.

Delete it -- and feel your energy coming back!