I'm spending time going through my inbox this weekend, and I'm cringing as I see how many unread emails that I have in there:

15,804 

Those aren't all from "real" people, so don't worry - I don't have 15,804 people thinking "That Marc is a real jerk for not getting back to me"

The truth is, I was on a lot of email lists earlier this year that weren't serving me - and it took me some time to drop off them. 

And then there's that lovely stuff "spam", which has a way of sneaking into an inbox. 

But that's still a ton of email, and it's 15,804 little things weighing on my shoulders.  

So I made a decision to clean the sucker out.  And after I started going through enough emails, I realized a few things: 

- more information isn't necessarily better.  Get too much stuff coming at you, and your brain will freeze with overwhelm.  It's all about quality over quantity, baby. 

- things that bothered me months ago weren't really big deals since I forgot about them before going through my old emails. Now I think "I worried about that?".  Don't sweat the small stuff. 

- and here's a tip since hundreds of those emails were people asking to be guests on my podcast: when pitching a host, don't send emails that are obvious copy and paste jobs,  I can't count how many emails started with "I'm a big fan of Natural Born Coaches and would love to share my story with your audience .... " and similar verbiage.  Send a genuine/real email that shows that you've actually listened to the show.  Or get my better half to pitch for you, she's awesome at what she does (www.InterviewsOnDemand.com)

Going forward, I'm going to be selective on the energy that's spent on my inbox. 

I'll be focusing on my clients, and not brain-pickers or people looking to just sell me. 

It's my inbox after all, and I get to choose how I respond.

I'd recommend that you take the same approach. 

I may not be able to completely avoid inbox overwhelm, but I'll be better at it this year than last, 

Marc 

PS: One type of email that I don't mind getting is from people interested in my group coaching program. I have a new one coming up soon, check it out at www.NaturalBornCoaches.com/group and hit "Reply" if you have any questions.