Top 10 Tips: Organise your e-mail
- Set up junk filters. Send unwanted and irrelevant e-mails straight to your junk folder so it does not clog up your inbox. Make sure you occasionally scan over your junk mail in case anything important accidentally ends up in there.
- Set up different folders. Have different folders for different categories of e-mail: invoices, appointments, personal etc. This will keep relevant messages all in the same place and make them easier to find.
- Deal with e-mails as quickly as possible. Don’t let e-mails sit untouched in your inbox for days, respond or add a follow up action as soon as you read the message.
- Have a stock of template e-mails. If you regularly receive e-mails requesting the same information of regularly send similar e-mails to clients, make sure you have a template that you can send out straight away. Take a look here at some useful examples of phrases that you could use.
- Remove yourself from irrelevant mailing lists. Daily or weekly e-mails from companies that you signed up for years ago merely make your inbox look cluttered. Unsubscribe from as many possible, only keeping those that you actually read.
- Set up an address book. Keep a digital address book with up to date e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and other relevant details for all your contacts. Make sure this is updated on a regular basis.
- Action e-mails as you read them. If you cannot reply to an e-mail immediately, make sure you add a follow up action so you remember to come back to it.
- Print off important e-mails. Some e-mails you may need a hard copy of – invoices are a common example. Print any important e-mails straight away and file them away. Make sure you also download them and save them to your computer should you need another copy.
- De-clutter often. Regularly go through your folders and delete old e-mails or those that you no longer need. This free up storage space and keep your e-mail running quickly.
- Schedule regular time to deal with e-mails. Set yourself set times each day to check and deal with your e-mails. Doing it 2 or 3 times a day is plenty and means you can deal with everything all in one go.
