In today’s episode, I try something a little experimental – I clear out my email inbox (and some other life inboxes) in real time on the air! Listen to find out how long it took to get me from ~140 messages (half a week’s worth of accumulation) in my primary gmail inbox to 0, with examples of what I did with many of those little pieces of information (ie: airtight task management in action). Plus, I share some takeaways for you if you struggle with task management or collecting all of your inputs.
(Note: I know that 140 messages in half a week is LOW for many of you — my attorney brother-in-law was just telling me that’s a regular morning accumulation for him, and I dealt with a much faster-paced accumulation during my program director days. Please note my example in this episode does not include my clinical inbox or my health system email, which are both processed on clinical days and are entirely compartmentalized in my mind. If you have a far more active inbox, I still think many of the same principles/techniques apply, but it’s true that sometimes at scale one would have to modify or consider outsourcing for things to work! And, in some circumstances the clean outs would have to be far more frequent than 1-2x/week.)
AND: If you have interesting email cleanout habits to share – I would love to hear about them! I know there are definitely multiple ways to get this done.
Then, I share my review of Hemlock & Oak’s new 70gsm daily / weekly / monthly planner offering!
And . . . you can win one (it does have the two mockup pages filled out as below at the very end of the year, but is otherwise pristine) by entering a comment in this post! I will draw winners on Wednesday. Open to US mailing addresses only.
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105 Comments
I have been wanting to try Hemlock and Oak! Thanks for the review.
I find it interesting how much personal email practices can vary. Looking forward to this episode!
Love the podcast and love Hemlock & Oak!
Hemlock & oak looks like such a beautiful planner.
Hemlock and Oak is great! I used their dot grid notebook before, but haven’t tried their planner yet.
I would love to try a H&O! 🤞🏻Thanks, Sarah!!
Love the Hemlock & Oak review!
I’m inspired. I have 30 minutes before I need to head to teach, and am going to see if I can get through my inbox. Currently 26 messages in primary, but all things I’ve been ignoring for awhile.
Love hemlock and oak!
Interesting to hear how long it takes you to process your inbox – motivates me to set a timer and do it myself to prevent distraction! Also, I’ve been recently interested in the vertical weekly Hemlock and Oak. Not sure if I’d use the dailies though.
Love your show and would love to try out that planner!
Loved the description of this planner review! Thanks for the inbox tackling motivation!
Looking forward to listening to this podcast episode!
I haven’t used a paper planner in a few years, and admittedly, my life feels a little chaotic. This planner looks great! Im hoping some new systems in the new year could refocus my time and energy to exactly where it needs to be.
Have never tried hemlock and oak but love that daily layout – Thanks for the review!
Love this idea! I’m lookin for a new planner and am intrigued by the Hemlock and Oak daily/weekly/monthly concept.
I love my H&O this year and would love to try a new one!
I would love to be entered for the giveaway! I have tried many planners and haven’t had success at finding a system that works for me. I think the “all in one approach” might be helpful!
I have always wanted to try this brand and I think two “autographed” pages from you would be super cool! Also, that was such a cool idea to do the email clean out “live.”
Do you delete any email or archive them all once processed? What do you do with all of the archived emails? What about emails you want to save?
Would love to use the Hemlock and Oak planner. Thank you.
they are ALL archived – I do pay a small fee to google for storage (like $20/yr). but that way I can search for everything.
Great episode Sarah! You inspired me with the inbox clean up. I currently have 3 email addresses I really need to consolidate down to 1. I had one pre-marriage, then made one with my married name and then my husband and I have a shared one we used for stuff we both want to see. I use unroll.me to get one email with a summary of all my emails from the day. I can then delete multiple with one click.
Interested in H&O!
Love the premise of this episode! And would very much love this planner!
I’ve wanted to try Hemlock and Oak, particularly this layout! I love your podcast, it’s given me so many practical things to think about as I learn how to be a work outside the home mom.
Thanks for the review! Not sure I’ve ever used an all-in-one planner before, would be fun to try.
Going to work on my email cleanup today! And, I would LOVE to try that planner!! I’m itching for something new! Thank you for your weekly wisdom!
Great episode today! I’m very interested in trying Hemlock and Oak. 😊
I am really motivated to get my inbox in order! Thank you for all of your hard work with this podcast…I look forward to it every week!!
Love this idea Excited to listen when I can process my inbox along with you. And definitely interested in hemlock and oak!
This was very enlightening!
This planner looks great!
Wow, I would love this planner!
I got a Laurel Denise “Kristy” but am having second thoughts about whether a daily would work better for me… would love to test it out!
I love your podcast and look forward to it every Monday morning!
This planner looks great. Love a grid format!
Hello, The podcast was great. Loved how you shared you process of going through email. I have a lot of interest in the Hemlock and Oak planner. I am looking for one that does weekly and daily together. That’s awesome!
Wow – a planner with Weekly & Daily! It is so hard to find (with them in order). I’d love to check it out!
As usual, I loved starting my Monday morning off with the best laid plans episode! I would love the opportunity to have my name entered to win the planner!
Hi, thank you for having a drawing. I have never tried a planner before!
I would love to try this planner! And so inspired by your inbox clean out!
Would love to win the Hemlock & Oak planner.
I’ve been wanting to try this planner! Thanks for the review!
I love your podcast! I look forward to it every Monday morning. You have a very grounding voice and make planning so interesting.
I have been looking at Hemlock and Oak over and over again and not seeing many reviews so this is great! Thanks for the review and excited to be entered!!
I’ve been curious about this planner and loved hearing your thoughts! Another great episode…thanks!
Great episode! I am one of the people that feels like emptying my inbox shouldn’t take any time, and because I don’t have a system that builds up and becomes stressful. I love hearing your process!!
I would also be thrilled to win the planner and try it out for myself. Thanks for all you do!
Count me in! Looking forward to the release of your new book very soon.
This is beautiful! Thank you for the thoughtful review.
Nice to hear your strategies for dealing with the ever growing inbox!! I am interested in the planner! Actually, and I agree with having a six month version too!! 🙂 🙂 Thanks so much! You made mondays something to look forward to!
This planner sounds great! A video podcast for these kinds of reviews would be awesome.
oh I know!! There WILL be video next week – stay tuned!!!
I’d love to enter!
I also want to say that because of a previous episode of BLP I flipped how I empty my inbox and it has made a huge difference! I used to empty by selecting what I wanted to archive (or in my case just “mark as read”) but now I select all and just deselect the few emails I want to open/read. SO much faster! And it boggles my mind that out of like 200 emails, I sometimes have only ten I need to open. I do unsubscribe from stuff regularly but clearly I need to do even more unsubscribing…
I’d love to win the giveaway and try out a planner that sounds like the setup would be great for me!
Would love a chance to win the planner but also thought I’d share a question. How are your Apple notes organized? I was trying to imagine what you meant when you said to moved info from email to your Apple notes. Do you literally copy paste text or screenshot? How do you have folders within folders? When you archive your emails do they go into folders for just a general archive? I think like I struggle with being too detailed or too much of a splitter when working on processing my inbox. Thank you for your podcast I’m a fellow physician and longtime listener.
some screenshots (vacation reservations), some copy/paste (ad copy put into folders). but i’m not very precious about the folders. I can get sloppy bc it’s searchable 🙂 Every year or so I clean things up!! I use the PARA format (projects, areas, research archive) from Building a Second Brain for my initial organization!
I love your podcast! I also love Hemlock and Oak. They have beautiful quality products!
Another great episode, Sarah – really enjoyed hearing how you tackle your email – very helpful! Thank you also for the great planner review!!
Very helpful to have you walk through the email process. Might make inbox 0 a goal for next year. And I would be delighted to try the Hemlock and Oak planner; I don’t mind the larger size because I work from home and it mostly stays on my desk.
I am the kind of a person who loves listening to a podcast about emptying an inbox! I take a similar approach: get rid of FYI/non action emails, work through all of the “action” emails, and then move everything out of my inbox. For my personal email everything goes into one of three folders: personal, receipts, or travel. When I was working I found it more useful to store old emails in one folder for each month. It sounds odd, but I was always pretty good at remembering when things happened within a range of a few months.
Hi Sarah, I love your podcast !! I really want to try the Hemlock and Oak weekly daily planner. I tried to buy the planner but it’s sold out 🥺
I love Hemlock & Oak, but I didn’t manage to snag this planner before it sold out! Thank you so much for the review. I love their thicker 120gsm paper, so I’m very intrigued by the thinner 70 gsm in the new layout. Maybe they’ll consider a two volume with the 120 😍
I would love to try the planner! I’ve never used a daily one before but 2026 is looking to be very busy so I’d like to give one a try.
I really enjoyed this episode. The biggest takeaway for me is that it would likely be more efficient and effective if I checked my personal email less often, and only when I have the bandwidth to process the email. I so often check my personal email on my phone when I’m on the go and not in a place to do more than send a 1-2 line response. It was a total d’oh moment as I was listening to your summary of your emails that a 1-2 line response is rarely the necessary action item needed to process my personal emails so checking my email on the go isn’t helping me process my emails. I’ve told myself that jumping into my inbox to clear out the junk makes my inbox less overwhelming when I go back to process, but so often the action item emails get forgotten about. I just need to schedule dedicated time to process my personal inbox, much like I have dedicated time to process my work inbox.
Would love to try the planner!
I enjoyed both parts of the episode. The email section definitely gave me some thoughts. I am still trying to figure out 2026, but I am loving what I have seen and heard abut this planner. Would definitely love to use it!
I love listening to your episodes each Monday. This one inspires me to get my inbox just smaller. Unsubscribing and inbox “rules” will surely make my weekly inbox zero less painful. Oh— any hints for changing email addresses? I still use a Hotmail address and it makes me feel un-young. I’m wondering if an auto response will just invite more junk? But I definitely want an auto response for my truly valued friends and family. I’m afraid if I just do an announcement, I’ll miss somebody.
Have been eyeing a Hemlock and Oak planner! Loved hearing your review!
Loved this episode! Definitely motivated to clean up my email inbox. Would love to try the Hemlock and Oak Planner. Love the idea of monthly, weekly and daily all in 1 book
I would be honored to own a planner that had two pages filled out by Sarah.
I need to go through all of my inboxes! You wouldn’t believe how many emails I have.
Looking forward to hearing if I win the planner!
Thanks for your review! Would love to try out a H&O planner!
Thanks for a great episode. I love Hemlock and Oak and would love to try the planner out!
Would love to be considered for the planner!
Loved this episode, I think the process would scale just fine with more emails, it would just take longer and need more sessions. I hope no one really needed that as a disclaimer!
The H&O planner sounded intriguing, sign me up for the very smooth paper 🙂
I cheerfully raise my hand for the giveaway. That layout looks like exactly what I need. I tried to go buy one right away, but it appears to be sold out for now!
Thanks so much for all your content — I have really loved it this year.
Ooh, this is a nice giveaway! I’m not entering, because it looks like this is a BIG planner, and more than I need (plus I already have mine for 2026!) But someone will be very happy to get this.
I would love to be considered for the hemlock and oak giveaway! Thank you for all that you do for the planner community
Hemlock and Oak seems like an excellent brand, I would love to be entered for the giveaway!
I loved this episode!! Email management as a mom of 3 with a day job and side hustle (sound familiar?!) is always a struggle for me, but I appreciated hearing about your approach and the time involved…it made it seem really manageable and I’m going to try it! The Hemlock and Oak planner looks amazing, thanks for the chance to enter to win!
Great episode – and I’m always nosey about how others deal with their inbox. The planner sounds great and I’d love to win x
I’ve been wanting to try Hemlock and Oak, too!
Been listening since September 2025 and have listened to over 100 episodes since then. I love your show! So glad you’re doing this!
Would love to win the planner. Happy planner!!
I hope I win!
Commenting to enter the giveaway. I would love to try this planner. Great episode as usual. It was fun to tag along on the inbox clean out.
Love your pod! The only one I faithfully listen to each Week.
I loved this episode because of the real-time inbox management — I truly needed this, and I have years of disorganization in my email to overcome. It’s not going to be easy!
Also, I would love to win the H&O planner!!
I would love to win a planner. Happy Thanksgiving.
Your episode inspired me to sitdown and also get my inbox to zero! It has been on my list of things to do for quite some time and listening to the process you went through was just what I needed. I always love to hear how someone approaches those types of Tasks! I also appreciate how you are honest about your reviews of the different planners! The Hemlock and Oak planner sounds like a good one! But the price point is a little out of my budget. So thank you for sharing!
Love your podcast. For me it’s a great way to start my week. Looking forward to your book.
H&O is a wonderfully focused company, would love to try one of their planners.
Thank you for all you do!
Entering the giveaway for the Hemlock in Oak planner!
Well, I certainly didn’t expect to be the 84th person to comment here this time, but yes, I’m one of those who do have some interests in seeing what methods you use to reach inbox zero, Dr. Sarah Hart-Unger. I can also see how the Hemlock & Oak’s planner can be complementary with the Hobonichi planners and all other planners.
Love the podcast and this episode
Bought some Hemlock products after BLP 2024 and love the paper. In it to win it!
Love the podcast! I have heard every single one. Love the size of H&O dot grid and would like to try a daily planner. Thanks! Diane
Thanks for your detailed description and review of the Hemlock and Oak Planner! I’d love to give it a try.
I love the podcast and I would love to have that Hemlock and Oak planner!
Loved this episode – was inspired to try to get down to 0 emails… also so curious about Hemlock and Oak planner! Thanks Sarah!
Would love to try it. Have been intrigued by their IG but never took the plunge.
I enjoyed this episode! I’m inspired! I need a better system for capturing tasks. I don’t have a lot of important things coming to my email but occasionally things slip through the cracks. It was nice to hear how about how you do it!
love the podcast. gets my week off to an organized start. Woud love to try the Hemlock and Oak as my beloved Paperless a5 is not being made this year.
This episode was a real “two-fer” – a treat to hear the email cleanout & the planner review! I am inspired to re-listen to the episode and zero out my inboxes. I am also curious to try the new H&O planner – could it really compete with the Hobonichi Cousin?
Love your podcast! Even the “boring” episodes 🙂 I love a big planner and would be thrilled to try the Hemlock & Oak!
Thanks for the review! I’d love to enter the giveaway!
Would love to win this planner!
Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving! I’d love to win the planner – and completely enjoyed the inbox zero episode as well. Looking forward to spending the day shepherding my kids around to their activities today and planning for 2026!