Are you one of those who receive hundreds of emails daily and having trouble to manage? Here are some recommendations which should hel...
Are you one of those who receive hundreds of emails daily and having trouble to manage? Here are some recommendations which should help:
1- Guide your teams/colleagues on where to include you in cc and where not to. This will reduce email flooding. For example, if you are a manager, you are not supposed to be copied in all minor correspondences.
2- Develop the habit of fast reading.
3- Set reminders: As soon as you send an email for a specific task, go to your 'Sent' items and set a reminder for follow up. You can use a Label (in case you are using Gmail email service). Alternately, Google Calendar is very good service which sends you reminder via email and sms for important tasks. You can use it for personal tasks as well.
4- Important emails should be read twice or sometimes more than that. You can use a separate folder for important emails so you can have a look at this folder once a day or may be twice. A suggestion is to Differentiate between Urgent and Important tasks.
5- One of the best ways to manage email is to avoid email J what I mean here is to pick up the phone, talk to the person and try to resolve the case. I have noticed that a lot of email correspondence happens for clarification of things which waste a lot of time. So use the phone or intercom to save your time. Encourage others for the same.
6- You might be receiving so many emails from specific mailing groups which you might have subscribed in the past but don't really need these emails any more. Unsubscribe.
7- While sending emails think from other's perspective and write a mature and to-the-point email. This will ensure reducing multiple correspondence for clarifications of things.
8- Indexing is helpful while searching for old emails. Google desktop is my favorite.
9- If you are using MS Outlook, Set rules for sorting the incoming emails. If you are using Gmail, use Filters.
10- If you are member of Google & Yahoo Groups and receive several emails daily then consider switching to 'Digest emails'. You will receive one email daily which will contain the links to all the emails of that day. You can quickly look at the headings of all emails and click on the email which you want to read.
In the end I would suggest developing analytical skills so not only you can effectively manage your life but sort out your emails and reduce the unnecessary fats from your inbox.