Last week, just as I was getting ready to dive into a productive work session, I noticed my Mac’s spinning beach ball of death. My computer was lagging badly. Apps were misbehaving—my screenshot software wouldn’t open, Adobe suite was crashing, and I discovered my email hadn’t been syncing for days.

Everything was either crawling along or completely frozen. I couldn’t access the tools I needed to get focused work done.

Just last week I ran a Notion Mastery workshop on Deep Cleaning Your Notion Workspace. Clearly, it was time for my own thorough digital deep clean.

The "Unexpected" Deep Clean

While this interruption derailed my planned day, I’ve learned to expect spending one to two days each year on this kind of cleanup and maintenance work. It’s built into my schedule, even if I don’t know exactly when it’ll be needed.

As I was troubleshooting my email sync issues, my partner Ben noticed my overflowing inboxes. I had pinned emails from 2023, hundreds of “set aside” messages, and countless unprocessed newsletters that would sit for weeks until I did a batch “archive all”—having read maybe one or two.

It took about half a day, but here’s what we did:

• Closed down all the apps and browser tabs.
• Made sure my operating system was up to date.
• Ran Clean My Mac; uninstalled old apps and deleted old files.
• Emptied my trashes.
• Restarted the machine.

Then in was time to tackle the inbox.

Tackling the Dreaded Inbox

Ben sat down at my laptop, adjusted my Spark email settings, and proceeded to process my email.

Ben has always been exceptional with his email hygiene. He’s one of those “inbox zero” people (unlike myself).

Email has always been an area where I simply resigned myself to being terrible.

While Ben has tried helping me build better email habits before, something felt different this time. It felt more doable as he walked me through his daily process without judgment, showing me his actual routine in real time.

I stood over Ben’s shoulder as he processed my email using his own method, asking questions and thinking aloud:

What’s this? Do you need this?
Do you need to respond to this?
Is this still important?
Let’s unsubscribe from this.
Set this aside.
Pin this. Unpin these.

Here’s what we did to spring clean my email inbox:

• We selected all pinned emails more than 3 months old, and unpinned them.
• We unsubscribed from all newsletters from the last month except the absolute essentials.
• We went through all recent pins, and processed them, replying to any that would take less than 2 minutes, and turning any that needed more time into Notion tasks (e.g. schedule podcast interview, fill out intake forms, follow up to an email with questions or a thoughtful reply, schedule an errand to go to the post office, etc.).
• Adjusted the settings in Spark to make a few key changes:
  • Changed the layout to Split view.
  • Changed the behavior to Open previous when an email is archived or deleted.
  • Removed the Newsletter/promotions and Notifications visual grouping, so each email is visible in the inbox (which makes you much more discerning about what makes it to your inbox!)

After processing the backlog and pins (and turning some of those pins into real world tasks), I finally made my way to the post office to mail a book to a friend who loaned it to me a year and a half ago! It was a 30-min task that I’ve been putting off for a year and a half. While the task was tiny, it felt like such a massive win, and a weight off my shoulders.

What subconscious weight do our inboxes and “read later” lists carry?

Building Sustainable Email Habits

Moving forward, the new email habit:

• Unsubscribe to non-essential emails as they come in
• Process the inbox:
  • Done reading an email, and it doesn’t need a reply? Archive it.
  • Can I reply in under 2 mins? Reply.
  • Need to set aside time to reply? Set Aside. Create a Notion action item and schedule it.
  • Need to reference an email later (confirmations, receipts, reference)? Pin it.

During my daily admin block, I scan the Set Aside group and answer those emails first, then review the pins. I start at the bottom with the oldest email and work my way to the top.

Using keyboard shortcuts makes the whole process move quickly, but the key of course, is a few things:

• Make processing a habit.
• Reduce the number of emails coming in (unsubscribe!)
• Archive everything that's non-essential. (it's all searchable if you need it)

Now, it’s only been a few weeks, but I’ve actually been able to maintain inbox zero, and for the first time ever, having a clean inbox feels like a sustainable habit.

Finding Control in What We Can Change

It could be the gardener in me, but springtime really does feels like a new beginning; a fresh start.

There’s a lot that’s out of our control right now, but our digital spaces are one place where we can still instil order. I don’t know about you, but when I find myself veering toward despair about the state of the world, focusing on small, tangible tasks helps ground me. Clearing out an inbox, updating software, or organizing files might seem trivial against the backdrop of global events, but these acts of maintenance create pockets of calm and control in our daily lives.

Perhaps there’s something comforting in starting with what’s directly in front of us—the digital tools we use every day. When we tend to these spaces with care, we’re practicing a form of resilience. We’re saying: this matters enough to maintain, and I matter enough to create workspaces that support rather than deplete me.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the news or uncertain about the future, consider doing a small digital spring cleaning. It won’t solve the world’s problems, but it might just give you the mental space and clarity to face them with more grace.

What small act of maintenance might bring you a sense of calm this week?

I’d love to hear.

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Marie Poulin
​Notion Mastery​

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