Email is designed to facilitate communication, but seldom it becomes a counter-productive tool because considerable time is spent in managing the email. In a workday, 40% of the time is spent on the email by the employees, which is thirteen hours a week. At the end, email is just a tool to get the task done. There are many things you can do to manage email overload. Here are some tips to improve your email management:
Get Fewer Emails
The best method to receive less email is to send less email. Decrease the number of recipients per e-mail by discontinuing to use the “Cc” and “Reply to All” features, also the group distribution lists.
Write Better Messages
Weak or inadequate subject lines and “wall of words” messages do not work because people before reading the message, scan them. Every message should start with a specific subject line and a short greeting. Then split the body of the e-mail into three sections using the “ABC” method, “Action” (summarize your purpose), “Background” (present your important points), and “Close” (explain the subsequent steps).
Coach Frequent Senders
People who frequently send you an email, give them some good suggestions on writing emails because miraculously people will not send you better emails.
File and Find Information Faster
People most often have a large number of folders of overlapping emails. To deal with this, create limited folders based on contents and not sender, software, or any other criteria.
Start with Yourself
We are to blame for the present email distress and mismanagement. So, to bring out the change in the workplace, start with yourself. Here are a few tips for this:
Process your Mail Once a Day
To process your emails, fix a daily time slot. Prioritize the important ones. Even if you receive a lot of time-sensitive emails, you can still practice this. The purpose of this is to not let email run over your life. Always remember that it is a tool to help in work, not the work itself.
Create Template Replies if you Often Send Similar Replies
Mostly, the email we receive can usually be arranged in a few categories, like feedback or thank you emails, requests, inquiries and likewise. For similar kinds of emails, use templates. Customize them accordingly to fit in the requirements of the original mail. This saves a lot of time.
Read-only the Relevant Emails
We generally subscribe to several things and receive emails from them, but we do not read all the emails daily. We even do not delete them as they have relevant information. To deal with this, set Gmail to archive them automatically to different folders. Read them when you need to. There is no need to read every single mail. Select and choose what’s appropriate for you.
Unsubscribe from Things you Don’t Read
If you are receiving emails that are not relevant and if you regularly delete the mail from your subscriptions, then it is high time for you to unsubscribe immediately.
Put a stop on the interruptions that prevent you from doing the”real job”. It’s obvious to get taken up in the cycle of reading and responding to emails. Implement the above-mentioned methods and other methods by joining our webinar on strategizing your email management.