At one point during my 22-year CEO journey, I had more than 25,000 emails sitting in my inbox. It overwhelmed me and irritated our IT team. My relationship with email had reached I Love Lucy levels of chaos. You know the scene at the chocolate factory where Lucy and Ethel can’t keep up with the conveyor belt? That was me … only with Outlook.
I remember telling my executive coach that I planned to spend an entire week cleaning and organizing my inbox. Her response stopped me cold. She said, “I know you. Once you decide to do this, it will happen. So, I don’t want to talk about it next month. I’m putting a note on my calendar to ask you about it next December.”
Touché.
Truth be told, it took me longer than a week to get my inbox into top shape. But once I did, I never went back to my old habits. Having a coach who held me accountable helped, but accountability wasn’t the whole story. What really changed my behavior was realizing that a clean inbox lowered my stress, created a surprisingly effective to-do list, and kept the IT folks happily off my back.
Now, years later, I sometimes wonder why it took me so long to make the change.
Here’s what I think held me back:
- Habit: For a long time, my system worked well enough. Inertia did the rest.
- Time: I told myself I didn’t have time for something that didn’t directly serve our members.
- Fear: What if I uncovered an email from three years ago that I never answered? What if I made things worse instead of better?
- Knowledge: I wasn’t using my inbox to its full capability, so I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
- All-or-nothing thinking: If I couldn’t do it perfectly, I wouldn’t start at all.
As I write this, it’s clear that the all-or-nothing mindset was the real culprit. The task felt insurmountable. At the time, I spent nearly 60 hours creating a system, which felt absurd. Here’s what I know now: because I maintain it, it’s barely a chore at all.
Have you ever struggled to start something because it felt too big? Have you ever heard someone say, “You can’t eat an elephant in one bite”?
That kind of dichotomous thinking doesn’t just affect inboxes. It can fuel perfectionism, polarized thinking (all good or all bad), anxiety, and self-criticism. Worst of all, it can rob us of the courage to even begin.
This is where executive coaching can make a real difference.
Whether it’s your inbox or something far more complex, we’d love to help you take the first bite.
