I recently had a request to help take an overloaded eMail inbox and make it manageable. This is such a common request amoung business owners and even when I was working in the corporate world and working along side senior executives. It’s a challenge to keep up on the constant inundation of eMail everyday. So here’s my offering for helping you make steps to get it under control and if you’d like some help with this task and any other administrative support give me a shout!
Tip #1 – Turn off the alerts already! Most email programs alert you when a new email has arrived, whether it’s by making a sound or popping up a window on your computer screen, you can turn off such options by accessing the Tools, Preferences or Options section of your email program. Exclusive user of Gmail? Simply do not download any of the notification add-ons or extensions. When you don’t know the email is arriving it is easier to schedule time into your day to look at it only a few times each day.
Tip #2 – Turn off the program. So you’ve turned off the alerts but now you’re guilty of constantly jumping between what you are doing and your email program. Then shut it down! Only open your eMail program when you need to check your email.
Tip #3 – Unsubscribe! It seems at some point or another you’ve signed up to receive a newsletter or blog updates by email that you thought you’d want to read, but instead these emails are either getting relegated to a folder to read later and then often don’t ever get read. If this is the case, then unsubscribe! If you haven’t read a weekly newsletter from someone in the last month, then unsubscribe! Take a look maybe they have a blog you can subscribe to in your RSS Feed reader and you can manage it that way (BTW, RSS Feed Readers will be another topic on how to purge and manage). Either way, reducing the number of newsletter, ezines or Blog Posts by email will shrink the size of your inbox for messages that you receive and yes, you’ll feel better!
Tip #4 – Start Fresh. For some this might be considered a cheating way to do it, but it helps and it works. Choose an arbitrary date, say two weeks from the day you’re reading this. Create an archive folder in your email program and then archive everything that is more than two weeks older. Mark the folder as read and presto, chango! You’ve already purged a huge number of emails from your inbox. Going forward, be sure to take some time each week to filter, archive, unsubscribe and delete any emails that you no longer need.
Tip #5 – Schedule it. It’s been briefly mentioned in Tip #2, but now it’s time to do it. Actually schedule time in your day to review your email and inbox. When we didn’t have email we waited for the regular mail to arrive and then took time to open the mail and review what we received. Look at email the same way, choose a time each day. Best to make it around the same time each day to review your email and that is the only time you look at your email. If this scares you that you won’t respond to something in time, set up an automatic reply that will respond to every email stating that you check your email at designated times and will respond to them at that time. If it is an emergency mention in the alert email to have them call you. Problem solved!
Tip #6 – Act on it! If you have followed the previous steps so far, your inbox should be well on it’s way to being managed. Now it’s time to do something about it! When you’re reviewing your email at your designated time during the day, rather than just file an email for later, do something with it. Can you respond to it right now? Then do it! Did you just receive another newsletter that you don’t read? Then unsubscribe and trash it! Did you receive something that you don’t need to do anything with, but still need to keep the information on hand? Then file it! Right now! Don’t save it for later, do something with it as soon as you read it!
Further inspiration:
Here’s a few posts I found while doing some research for this post that I thought you might also find interesting and useful.
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