In today’s workplace, we’re inundated with emails all day long. While the use of email has obvious benefits, confronting your inbox(es) can be a daunting task. A slew of email can also make it easy to lose important items in the day-to-day shuffle.
For me, transitioning from student life to professional life meant a transition from sending a handful of emails a day to sending and receiving hundreds. This presented an unexpected organizational challenge. However, in my past year at Communiqué, I’ve learned to make use of the below tricks to manage my own personal and professional email effectively:
- File or delete first. When I arrive in the office every morning, and when I return to my desk after a prolonged period away, I immediately go through the email I’ve received and delete unnecessary items. I also file items that I’m CC’ed on that don’t require a response from me. This allows me to quickly narrow down what in my inbox actually requires my attention, without losing track of important information.
- Decide what to do with every message. I learned this effective habit from a co-worker: If I’m not going to delete a message, file it, or reply to it, I make myself add it to my to-do list. This forces me to deal with action items immediately or add them into my current work queue, rather than leaving emails stagnant in my inbox or filing something without dealing with it.
- Actively unsubscribe. This applies more to my personal account than my business email, but every time I receive an email from a listserv I’m not interested in, I go through the process of unsubscribing. Although time spent deleting these emails is minimal, it can add up. I now receive almost nothing that I’m not interested in, which makes checking email fun and interesting, rather than intimidating and annoying.
- Take some activities out of the inbox. Online collaboration tools (Smartsheet is what we use at Communiqué) can significantly reduce the amount of redundant email you process. Rather than sending an Excel document containing project lists back and forth, or updating a manager on the status of something via email, Smartsheet allows you to update project work in the cloud, helping to minimize the amount of email flowing through your inbox.
Managing email overload is certainly something that takes time, fine-tuning and customization for your own needs and work style. However, applying the above proactively to my own daily routine has allowed me to focus less on wading through email and more on getting work done.
For more tips on managing email, see:
- About.com: Email Management Tips for Improved Productivity
- Microsoft at Work: Empty your Inbox: 4 ways to take control of your email
- PCMag: Get Organized: 11 Tips for Managing Email
How to you manage your email?
Heather Campbell