E-mail is here to stay. And the amount of the e-mail we all receive is steadily increasing. With the average professional receiving between 80 and 100 e-mails every day, it can be a real challenge to not only manage all those e-mails, but to stay current. It is an even bigger challenge to be able to do these things in what we used to define as the normal work day.
Unfortunately, many people have gotten into the habit of “saving” their e-mail for their quiet time — before work, during lunch, after the office closes, or weekends. While this practice may be appropriate in exceptional circumstances, too many people have incorporated these personal times into their regular workdays. Now people are finding that they are spending more and more time each day working as e-mail is extending their workload by as much as two hours.
If you find yourself suffering from e-mail overload and staying at the office later than intended, here are some time-saving tips.
Reduce the number of times you check for new e-mail. Constantly checking for new e-mails and responding to them immediately actually results in decreased productivity. Therefore, we recommend checking no more than five times daily. Morning, midmorning, after lunch, mid afternoon, and before the end of the workday. Tell people that if they need you urgently, to please call.
Incorporate e-mail sorting into your day. You cannot avoid e-mail but by sorting, prioritizing, and planning specific times in your day (not after work or on the weekends) to conquer the e-mailed tasks, you will set the stage for getting out of the office earlier.
Differentiate between “sorting” and “handling” e-mail. Too many people confuse these two actions. It is important that you go into your e-mail a few times daily and sort the newly received items. Note: sort does not mean work.
The two-minute limit: One exception to the sort versus work rule is if you can accomplish the task in the e-mail within two minutes, do it! If not, file it in an appropriate folder to be viewed when you are planning your priorities for the day.
Set a regular time, once daily, to plan your work for the day. This allotted time is when you go into your sorted e-mail to determine its priority in relation to other projects, telephone calls, meetings, and assigned work. Most people do this in the morning. By setting a regular time daily you will be assured of working the e-mails you receive in the proper priority.
Control your e-mail, don’t let it control you: Turn off automatic send and receive and check your e-mail on your own time. Don’t let the e-mail “ding” pull you away from the work you are already doing.
By taking ownership of your e-mail, reducing the number of times you check your e-mail daily, separating the sort and work functions of your e-mail, and incorporating the work delivered by e-mail into the planning of your workday, you will be able to reclaim that extra time, and get out of the office earlier — every day!
Do you have a trick or rule that you use to control your email?
Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC, is CEO of the Egan Group, Inc. An ICF Certified Professional Coach, she is a leading authority on email productivity. She works with companies who want to recover lost time and money due to wasteful email practices. Assess your emailing habits and find great tips on how to manage your email at http://InboxDetox.com.
Great advice… especially for those of us attempting to organize and manage our businesses in 2012.
It’s definitely easy to become overwhelmed by what seems like a never ending barrage of emails. I have always found it helpful to try to respond to all messages before the end of the day. That helps me stay one step ahead and my customers always appreciate the responsiveness.
Another trick for controlling your inbox is to limit the number of e-newsletters and distribution lists to which you subscribe. You should also make it a habit to revisit the list periodically, making sure to unsubscribe from those you’re no longer interested in receiving. Above all, you don’t want them to bog you down and get in the way of other more important messages.
The kind of batch processing that you’re talking about makes a huge difference positive difference to my efficiency. It can be very easy to find myself distracted intermittently through the day by email, unless I’m being disciplined about dealing with email only at specific times.
You might also consider working to set up rules and filters to ensure that your main inbox is kept as clear as possible of “non specific” mail; whether that be email newsletters, distribution list items, or simply pieces that are not directly related to your working day. That means that when you do come to deal with your inbox, you’re dealing with the most vital and pertinent emails first. The rest you can look at on a more leisurely basis.
Great tips – I love how simple they are to apply!
Another thing I do, is that if I read an email, I deal with it right then. I try not to use the “Mark As Unread” button in order to come back later and answer the question or reply to the email. This saves time because I’m not reading the email twice to determine my response. Replying right away takes the stress out of knowing the email’s sitting out there, waiting for me to respond. If I respond right away, I don’t have to think about it anymore!
If you use Outlook, a great add-in that can help manage email is called ClearContext. It analyzes your email traffic and categorizes it into high, medium, and low priority based on how much back and forth traffic there is with a correspondent. It also offers one-click category assignments that let you move emails into calendar or task list or another folder, and OUT of the inbox.
Look for it at ClearContext.com. Worth the price.
You know what would be cool? — if email services could help you out with the first point, namely, you could customize a time window wherein you could access your email account, and block off other times. Of course, there maybe a time when you need to have immediate access outside your set time window, thus there could be some long-winded backdoor way to access your email you customize yourself — e.g. a screen that says, “Shame on you! Have some self-control and self-respect!” — as punishment for your deviance, however necessary.
Good, sound advice. I like to use highrise or other (free) crm to make emails into tasks. Then they can be prioritised from there, you can even say from the address you email to, when the task is due.