5 Steps to Spending Less Time With Your Inbox
Want to stop stressing about emails?
Of course you do! Why not start by listening to the free webinar Andrea held a couple of weeks ago, follow this link.
For even more time management strategies to increase your productivity and reduce your stress sign up for the There Is Enough Time online course starting 10 July, 10am. Click here to register.
In the mean time here is a taster – 5 Steps to Spending Less Time With Your Inbox
Although it is a relatively new concept, email has quickly become an integral part of most of our lives; can you imagine spending a week without email access? If, like us, you answered a definite “no” to that question, it’s safe to assume that you have well and truly become reliant on electronic communication.
Email is a fantastic method of communication as it is quick and easy to use but it’s all too common to fall into bad habits. We’re willing to bet you would be surprised if you totted up how long you spend dealing with emails each week. In order to free up some time to deal with more important tasks, you need to work on spending less time in your inbox. Here’s how…
The 2 Minute Rule
If an email can be dealt with in less than two minutes, do it straight away. Reading emails and leaving them in your inbox for later rather than firing off a quick response is just doubling your workload. You should aim to open and deal with each email just once.
Your inbox is not storage
How many emails are currently sitting in your inbox? Not just new ones you haven’t read yet. How many days/weeks/months old emails are sitting in your inbox, cluttering it up? Don’t read emails, action them – do, delete, delegate or add it as an action point on your to-do list. It is far more efficient to keep your inbox as clear as possible – that is why folders and labels were invented, after all.
Use folders, filters and labels
Following on from breaking the habit of inbox email hoarding, the next tip is to start using folders, filters and labels to manage your email. What you call the folders is up to you, however, To Read, Awaiting Reply, Action, Call, Family and Friends are a good starting points. If you want to keep it more general, try starting with Personal, Clients and Projects.
Turn off notifications
Yes, we mean it! You don’t need to know the second an email hits your inbox and we can guarantee that the pop up or new email sound tempts you to switch immediately from whatever you should be doing. Set aside time every hour or so (depending on how urgent your emails tend to be) to check for new messages.
Don’t be afraid to unsubscribe
Daily deals, special offers from your favourite shops or daily news bulletins – most of us will receive a number of these every day and, to be perfectly honest, we don’t really need them. When you next receive these emails, think about which you actually make use of. If you delete them immediately, hit unsubscribe to stop them wasting any more of your time.
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