Managing your work day, from task lists to time management to email, is all a personal preference. Everyone has their own style and it is essential to find what works best for you to work most efficiently.
I recently looked at my inbox and realized that it was distracting me — I wasn’t being as efficient as possible because I was responding to emails immediately, whether it interrupted my current focus or not. While there is nothing wrong with a prompt response, and likely encouraged in professional services, with some simple adjustments you can regain control of your email inbox, increase your productivity, and overcome email overload.
One of our clients told me that he only spends two hours a day answering email. I’ve also received out-of-office messages from reporters who have said they review email twice a day and if it is outside that window, they will not respond. Setting boundaries like those might be helpful for someone feeling overwhelmed with email. However, as email piles up outside of that window, it can feel unmanageable.
I came across an article in Ragan.com titled, “7 ways to manage email overload,” by Holly Reisem Hanna that offers some additional advice I found helpful.
I’ve highlighted a few tips from the article, coupled with my own experience, below:
- Creating an email schedule. Keeping your email open throughout the day can be distracting. There are times that I need to focus on a big project and I will close my inbox for periods of time. Hanna points out that keeping your inbox open all day controls how you work, and she suggests scheduling one to three times a day to answer emails. This might not sound realistic, but if you keep coworkers and clients in the loop, similar to the journalist I mentioned above, there won’t be any surprises.
- Get email organized. The first thing that I did when I started at CPR was create folders for each client, but depending on individual projects, that process has evolved. For example, I have “blog” folders for some clients. This allows folders to be easily searchable. Hannah suggests creating a follow-up folder, a hold folder, and an archive folder. I like the idea of a follow-up folder to easily locate items that need to be addressed, but don’t take up space in my inbox.
- Implement the two-minute rule. Creating a two-minute rule is an easy way to get emails out of your inbox and help that overwhelming feeling. The rule is easy to follow: If an email will take two minutes or less, answer it. If the email requires more in-depth thought, file it in your follow-up folder. Typically, I flag emails that require more thought with a red marker in Outlook to review later in the day. My colleague shared that she files the email and adds it to her to-do list to follow-up later.
- Unsubscribe from unnecessary newsletters. I know that I was spending far too much time deleting unwanted emails from subscriptions that I didn’t need. Many websites require you to sign up to gain access to materials, but make it a habit to immediately unsubscribe to newsletters so they don’t clog your inbox. I also subscribe to Google Alerts for certain topics, but realized I had not updated my keywords for accounts I no longer support. Some subscriptions are necessary, but you can create a rule or filter in Outlook that automatically sends the newsletter to a folder to read later.
- Be concise. Sometimes we get bogged down in crafting the perfect reply, but in most cases, a concise email is the most effective. It can be helpful to have a colleague quickly review your email to ensure your message is clear and concise. Additionally, Hannah suggests crafting a descriptive subject line that will help your recipient quickly gauge what your email is about. For more tips on subject lines read my previous blog post, “Subject Lines That Are Sexy.”
I know that I will implement some of these tips into my email management in the future. What tricks do you have for managing email?