Surfing our way through permission settings, privacy policies and incoming messages get exhausting. In a world where sinister characters take to the web to reach you, there’s even more necessary precautions to take to protect our private messages and subscriptions. You can’t cut corners and that means you’re signing up for two-factor authentication, anti-virus technology and reviewing what you sign up to. This means you have to figure out another point of entry for time saving and increased productivity. Keep reading to see if your inbox can be tweaked for an optimal workflow.

The first suggestion is the simplest, let an app help you manage it. You can get a gmail desktop app so you can work offline. These apps also unify multiple email addresses, so you don’t have to log into several places and repeatedly go through 2FA. You can also add your whatsapp or asana and get messages directly to your inbox. 

If you spend a lot of time mulling over what to say in your emails, save a few standard pieces of information that you repeat often as templates. You can save things like instructions, directions, status reports or reviews. You could even save holiday messages so you don’t have to come up with something clever every single Thanksgiving. Include your preferred way to end an email and your signature.

Don’t waste time seeing if your email has the capacity to send the file you’re going for. Chances are it’s going to be too big and you’ll get frustrated. Go straight to tools like Dropbox to send them over. UsefulPDF is helpful for converting pdf files quickly.

Busy people can also be stressed out people. If your hair starts to fall out seeing that notification bell get out of hand, set up an auto-reply with your turnaround time for most questions. You give peace of mind to readers who haven’t been replied to yet and it buys you time when you’re slammed. 

Remember that “Inbox zero” isn’t necessarily what works best for everyone. Be ok with tagging emails and getting to ones that can wait when you have the capacity.  Your mental heath and having that decompressed is much more valuable to your productivity than worrying about the number of emails you haven’t gotten back to.