Marie Kondo is a familiar name for most of us who never fail to use the term “OCD” to define ourselves. Sure, OCD would be inaccurate since it’s less often a disorder and mostly a behavioral trait. So, more like OCB – Obsessive Compulsive Behavior. Sure, let’s go with that.

Okay, so people with OCB mostly know who Marie Kondo is. For those who don’t, she is a Japanese organizing professional and the author of “Spark Joy.” She is a leading expert in helping people declutter their homes, their offices, and their lives. Her philosophy is that when you remove unnecessary objects from your surroundings, you give way for inspiration and a sense of calm. And isn’t that what we all strive for?

You’ve Got Mail

Okay, so I did share last week that I had fallen way off the wagon and am now on my way to get back to a more normal routine – both personally and professionally. Starting afresh is always a good idea – it leads way for more creativity, more efficiency, and more sanity, to be honest. But can you really begin again without cleaning out your junk drawer?

In my case, the junk drawer ended up becoming my mailbox. Now don’t get me wrong; I am not saying that the emails we receive are junk – well, at least not the ones in my professional inbox; my Gmail inbox, however…

I have a bit of a knack for keeping my professional inbox organized. Everything has a dedicated folder, even spam and internal distro emails. I set auto-forwarding rules to a lot of my inbox; that way, every time the notification for a new email chimes, I know it is something important.

Plus, once a task is completed from my end, or the email has been answered, I move it to its dedicated folder. That way, the only emails remaining in my inbox are those that are pending action. Pretty organized, right?

But somewhere along the road, my system broke down. I was drowning in a sea of deliverables, I was on the fast-track to a burnout, and I was losing my sanity. And as I started to fall apart, so did my inbox. I ignored it at first, as we so often are wont to, until it became a massive problem for me. And then, the task seemed so time consuming that I kept ignoring it.

But there’s only so much you can delay. Eventually, the mistakes need to be fixed. I was afraid that I had created too big a mess and that rendered me unable to do anything about it. But do something, I had to. And do something, I did.

The “Marie Kondo” of it All

So, no, we can’t use the usual “this sparks joy” analogy to organize our professional inbox. Hell, if I went about deleting every email that did not spark joy, my inbox would be rendered 100% empty. Well, 90%, give or take.

But there still end up being a lot of unnecessary emails that you do need to get rid of to make way for more critical ones. And it can be a daunting task.

There’s only one way to undertake a task like this – take the first step. And make sure that it is a small one.

So, one fine day, I blocked some time on my calendar and just got down to it. Here’s what I did:

1. Deleted all automatic replies and responses to calendars – You’d be surprised just how many of these are plaguing your inbox
2. Deleted all spam messages that had somehow ended up in my inbox – Easy to filter since the sender’s email ID would be different from your organization
3. Searched for message threads based on different topics and moved them into their respective folders

That last step is the one you need to do over and over again till everything gets sorted into folders, and voila! You’re done!

Honestly, once I started deleting the automatic replies and calendar responses, I had already decluttered a significant amount of junk. Plus, it gave me the much-needed high that helped me carefully sort out the important emails and get back to an organized inbox.

And just like that, I went from having over 2,000 mails in my inbox to just 84. And a big weight was lifted off my shoulders!

Post Clean-Up Clarity

Once your house is in order, positivity starts to flow. And that’s what it’s been like for me the past few days. But the most important thing to remember here is to keep the energy flowing. Complacency kills creativity. So I am being very mindful about sorting out my emails regularly. If anything should be an absolute resolution for me in 2025, it’s this:

Keep taking small steps today to avoid running a marathon tomorrow. It will make your journey much more pleasant and worth every moment!