Get Control of Your Email – Email Management, Part I
If your email was a bookshelf, would it look like this? (Source: Striatic)
Email. We all have it. We rely on it, and sometimes, we can’t get away from it. Overflowing Inboxes cause us stress. Trying to find an email causes stress. Wondering if you replied to all of the emails you need to causes stress.
As a remote team leader who works remotely from home, I receive anywhere from 300 – 800 emails a day. To be able to effectively manage such a flow of email, I’ve created these time-tested ways to utilize it effectively – and stay on top of it.
Today, that stress goes away! Just follow the steps in this 3 part series, and you will get control of your email, instead of it controlling you. What follows is my formula for using email effectively. Some of my theories are not new. In fact, my main sources for this system are David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD), Franklin Covey’s planning systems, and my philosophy on priorities which you can read in my previous post, “How do you prioritize?”.
DAY 1
To get control of your email, you must first resolve that:
- Email is a required form of communication in your work, and you must commit time to it as a “thing”
- An empty inbox means less stress, more time, and much more creativity!
Next, you need a very basic system to organize and process your email. Here’s my system:
Step 1: The Best Way to Read Email.
This is a huge, and easy first step: GROUP your inbox email by conversation (ascending), and THEN, SORT by time/date received (descending). This will have the effect of showing you each “email conversation” going on in your inbox, with the most recent message at the top of each email conversation group.
- Note: By making this simple change alone, you will NEVER reply to an email, only to find more replies on that email later in your unread mail!
Step 2: Organize Your Email Folders.
Setup 4 folders within your inbox (the exclamation points make the folders show up first in most email programs):
- ! Action – emails that will take more than 2 minutes to respond to
- ! Read/Review – emails, attachments, video emails etc. that you will dedicate time to later
- ! Waiting For – emails where you are waiting for someone else to do something
- Archive – where all email goes when you are done with it
Step 3: Work the System!
- All email goes into your inbox to be physically processed by you! (don’t worry, it’s not a big deal, as you’ll see next)
- Emails that take less than 2 minutes to react/reply to get dealt with immediately
- Move all other emails to your folders
That’s it for Part I. I hope this is the start of a new relationship between you and your inbox! Good luck!
If you’d like to make improvements to your voicemail, check out these voicemail tips.
See also:Posted in: Communication Skills, Internet Business Skills, Personal Development
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