Do you feel a pit in your stomach when you look at the little red notification badge on your email app? The stress level spikes, and your anxiety goes on a heyday when you open your inbox.
You aren’t alone.
For many small business owners, the inbox is where productivity goes to die. It’s a reactive trap: you open it intending to work, but you end up spending two hours replying to people, putting out fires, and archiving spam. By the time you look up, it’s noon, and you haven’t done a single piece of strategic work.
Here is the hard truth: Email feels like work, but it is often just busy work.
If you’re the CEO, Founder, or Owner, you should not be the one sorting through newsletters, scheduling requests, and cold sales pitches. Your brain power is too expensive for that. But ignoring your email isn’t an option either. That’s where leads get lost, and clients get frustrated.
So, how do you escape the inbox trap? You need a system. At Danielle LeBaron & Co., we use the “Triage Method.”
The Triage Method: The 4 Ds
Imagine a hospital ER. Doctors don’t treat a stubbed toe before a heart attack. They triage. You need to do the same with your email. Every email that hits your inbox should immediately be subjected to one of four actions:
1. Delete (or Archive) Be ruthless. If it’s spam, a newsletter you never read, or a notification that doesn’t require action, get it out of your sight immediately.
- Pro Tip: Unsubscribe is your best friend. If you delete a newsletter without reading it three weeks in a row, unsubscribe.
2. Delegate This is the golden rule of scaling. If an email requires action but you specifically don’t have to be the one to do it, send it to a team member.
- Example: A request for an invoice? Delegate to your bookkeeper or VA. A request to schedule a coffee chat? Delegate to your scheduler (your VA).
3. Defer Some emails are important but require deep thought or time you don’t have right now. Do not let them sit in your main inbox. Move them to a “To Reply” folder or use a “Snooze” feature to have them pop back up when you have a dedicated time block for heavy lifting.
4. Do If an email takes less than two minutes to answer, do it right now. Don’t overthink it. Close the loop and archive it.
Why You Can’t Do This Alone
The Triage Method works, but it still requires you to be the one making the decisions. This is where a skilled Virtual Assistant changes the game.
When you work with a task-taker, you have to tell them what to do. When you work with a strategic partner like Danielle LeBaron & Co., we build the system for you. We don’t just clear emails; we build folders, set up rules, and create “Canned Responses” for your most frequent questions.
Imagine logging in and only seeing the 5 emails that actually require your CEO-level brain, while the other 50 have already been handled, filed, or deleted.
Ready to Close Your Laptop at 5 PM?
You didn’t start your business to be a professional email sorter. Stop letting your inbox dictate your day.
Let’s talk about our Administrative Support packages. We’ll handle the noise so you can hear yourself think again.
Danielle LeBaron | Virtual Assistant | Operations Manager | Eagle Mountain, UT |Salt Lake City, UT | Lehi, UT | Colorado Springs, CO | Fort Collins, CO 