Business email management – Tame your flooded inbox for better time management
Sometimes it takes folks a little while to learn business email management and keep up with incoming emails. Until that happens, the emails can pile up. So, what should you do if your inbox is overloaded?
Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
That’s the reaction that some of my clients have when they open up their email inbox and see 1,000 unread emails…or maybe even 10,000. Are you in the same boat?
A tip for better business email management
In the previous blog post (and YouTube episode and podcast), we talked about how to efficiently process your incoming daily email, so hopefully you start doing that. But in the meantime, if you need dig out of that email inbox, be sure to set aside time each day or perhaps once a week in order to clear out your old emails.
Maybe you can set aside 15 minutes a day. Or maybe the next time you have to take a flight, during the two hours you have to wait at the airport, you can spend that time cleaning out your inbox. Start with emails from a month back and scroll through them. Delete whatever you can as quickly as possible. The further back you go, then the more likely you are to find that you can delete more and more and more of them because those situations no longer apply, or you’ve already taken care of that request.
Set aside time on your calendar so that you can regain control of your business email management by digging out of your inbox. That way when you open up your email account, you won’t feel that anxiety or that panic when you see a large number next to the word Inbox. The large number will no longer be there! And when you’re in that mode, you’ll be able to make better decisions about how you use your time.
Since everyone has different learning styles, below are two different delivery methods to help you learn this productivity tip.
audio time management tip:
video time management tip:
Read
If you’re interested in starting with tip #1 in the Time Management Revolution series, you can start here.
Or, you can search for the various Time Management Revolution posts here.
Watch
You can watch the series of videos here.
Listen
You can listen to the Time Management Revolution podcasts in LibSyn or in iTunes.
Implement
Get your FREE Productivity Kickstarter Kit from time management keynote speaker Helene Segura at http://www.TimeManagementRevolution.com!
For more productivity tools and tips – including business email management – from time management training speaker Helene Segura, click here.
Great tips, Helene! Another thing that works for me (and something I’ve been using for the past year or two) is to set up different folders for different stuff in Outlook. I have separate folders for storing emails from each of my colleagues, our clients, and so on.
I also have this system where I only keep the emails I still need to attend to in my inbox. Once I read and respond to them (or complete the task that I am given in the email), I file them away into one of my folders. It saves me tons of time in the long run!
Excellent, Ashley! That makes life easier, doesn’t it? I teach my clients something very similar and discuss that in my “how to deal with incoming email” chapter in new book. You have yourself a fabulous weekend!