Emails require a daily process and a monthly purge if you want to keep your inbox at bay. The first thing you need to do is employ a process for dealing with your daily messages. Read How to Process E-Mail in Four Simple Steps first and then follow that with this article.

Schedule time once or twice a month (every month) to do the following tasks. Be sure to put it on your calendar as well. I know it’s digital, but it deserves just as much attention as the physical items taking up space in your life. Digital clutter is still clutter, so let’s purge!

1. Delete emails related to completed projects. While a project is in process, it makes sense to keep the drafts and other reference materials necessary for getting to the finish line. Once it’s been completed, go back and erase the messages that are not necessary for reference anymore and won’t be in the future.

2. Delete emails related to events that have passed. This task has the same concept as number five. Before an event, you’ll usually keep emails related to it for reference. Once it has happened, no need to keep them anymore. This applies to parties, travel, concerts, meetings, and weddings — anything that you have already attended.

3. Unsubscribe from junk subscriptions and then delete the emails. On a daily basis, you probably only have time to delete the junk emails, so take the time to unsubscribe from them during your monthly purge. This will lessen the amount of emails coming to your inbox dramatically.

4. Change the settings on the subscriptions you want to keep. Like to see what’s on sale at Macy’s every once in a while? No problem. Don’t unsubscribe completely from their email list. Just change your settings so that you receive emails less often. You can usually do this by hitting the “Unsubscribe” button on the bottom of their email, and then a list of frequency options or categories will come up.

Combine these tasks with the four simple steps to processing your daily email, and you’ll be a master at managing this constant incoming source of digital clutter. How fantastic!

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