How to manage your email

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Oversized ‘to do’ lists are intimidating and rarely get ‘done’. Your email has the potential to work in the same way. It can slow your day and interrupt productivity.

Do you sit at your desk and read everything that comes in but take no action and leave it sitting in your in-box?  The in-box can work like a gigantic ‘to do’ list that anyone can add to… whenever they like. Managing your emails effectively will save you time.

Ideally, your in-box should only have current or unread emails in it.  Once you open a message you need to do one of the following:

• action it immediately
• delete it
• file it for follow up/action.

For example – if you subscribe to e-newsletters you could keep them in a ‘to read’ folder and schedule in time to read through them all – maybe last thing on a Friday when you want to wind down.

If you have to phone people then put them into a ‘to call’ folder with a follow up date to remind you. Most email software have inbuilt functions that help you do this.

Checking email can be a time consuming task and I find that clients don’t allocate long enough to handle it effectively.  When you arrive at your desk allow at least 20 minutes without interruptions so that you can action and set follow-ups for new messages.  Depending on how many messages you receive a day set another 20 minutes after lunch and again before you leave.

Remember you manage it – it doesn’t manage you!

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