Get Control of Your Inbox:

Get Control of Your Inbox: 10 Ways to Become More Efficient with Email

© Copyright 2008-2012 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Contents How did your inbox get so full?.................................................................................................................... 3 Tip #1: Stop reading email first thing in the morning.................................................................................. 4 Tip #2: Turn off notifications ...................................................................................................................... 4 Tip #3: Set-up rules to weed out junk .......................................................................................................... 5 Tip #4: Get back to “traditional forms” of communication ......................................................................... 5 Tip #5: Unsubscribe from emails you don’t need ........................................................................................ 6 Tip #6: Skip the formalities ......................................................................................................................... 6 Tip #7: Reply immediately .......................................................................................................................... 7 Tip #8: Take advantage of search tools ....................................................................................................... 8 Tip #9: Keep emotions out of your replies .................................................................................................. 8 Tip #10: Delete and organize files at set times ............................................................................................ 8 Get control of your inbox to maximize your value ....................................................................................... 9

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How did your inbox get so full?

In this e-book, we’re going to talk about a dirty word that has two syllables: E-mail. Let’s face it, we have a problem with email and it’s making us less productive. Some studies say we spend up to a quarter or more of our day just dealing with stuff in our inbox. While you probably feel fortunate to have a job in today’s economy, you’ve probably absorbed someone else’s job and, as a result, are now getting more email than ever. It’s ironic because organizations want us to be more efficient, yet it’s our co-workers and companies that are bombarding our inboxes. Once upon a time email was a great productivity tool. Just think back 10 or 15 years ago. Remember how difficult it used to be to organize something as simple as a meeting? Before email you’d have to call people and make the rounds in the office to see who was free. It was a coordination nightmare. Thanks to email, you can now simply send an email to everyone involved at once. Or if you’re using Outlook, you can check someone’s calendar to see if they’re free. But as more and more people have gotten comfortable with technology, more and more people are now using email, for everything. As a result, we’ve become excessive. We now get email from people who sit in the next cubical—just eight feet away—thanks to this medium’s ability to protect us from mistakes and defend against ‘sneaky’ co-workers. This is the familiar world of ‘covering your butt’. It’s that world where you can dig an email out and be able to say, “See I told you so”—just in case you need to seven or eight years down the road. On top of that, we have an equally bad tendency to carbon copy people who don’t need to be included in email conversations at all. The result? We have hundreds of messages to sift through every week. Since this flow isn’t likely to stop anytime soon, here are ten practical tips to help you get control of your inbox and become more efficient.

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Tip #1: Stop reading email first thing in the morning

Early morning for most of us is crucial productivity time. But chances are, you probably spend this golden time at home (when you first roll out of bed) or at work (right after you get your computer turned on) in front of the internet. It’s human nature. You want to see what’s happened in the past 12 hours. You want to know who’s responded to your messages. And you want to see if any new mails have come in. But the thing is, you rarely need to reply immediately to an email you received just 12 hours ago. Most messages can remain unanswered for a certain amount of time. So instead of looking at email, you should spend that first hour focusing on critical, high-priority tasks that you need to get done. These are the tasks that measure your success. They let you know where you’re going to be going for the next day, week, month, and year—because ultimately many projects are comprised of small subtasks that you need to accomplish to get to a final goal. Studies have shown that the majority of people are most focused sometime in the morning. That’s why, if you’re dealing with email during this crucial time, you may not be as productive as you think overall—because you’re wasting the best time of the day for making progress on your goals. Perhaps you think, “That’s okay, I can multi-task.” Unfortunately, contrary to what many of us believe, studies have shown that multi-tasking is not actually all it’s cracked up to be. Try this out for one month: Instead of reading and replying to email first thing each morning, focus on tasks it’s important to get it done. Then after an hour of doing this, have a look at your mail. And work this way throughout your day. Set aside time at say 10 o’clock, 12 o’clock, 2 o’clock, and maybe 4 o’clock to check mails. Once you’ve done so, turn email off for an hour and refocus again on priority tasks.

Tip #2: Turn off notifications

If you watch for new mails like a hawk circles overhead for prey, you’re slowing yourself down. To curb the temptation to check email each time a message comes in, turn off your notifications. If you’re using Windows, the alerts indicating you have new mail may come via the icon in the 4

system tray at the bottom of your screen. They might come as a pop-up. Or they might come as a chime. Whatever alert you’re using, it’s highly distracting. Each time you see something new is in, you naturally have a desire to look at it. But when you do, it’s easy get off task. So turn those alerts off. That way, you’ll have more discipline when it comes to carrying out Tip #1, and you’ll be able to remain laser-focused on what you’re supposed to be doing. If you’re using Outlook (most of us are since it’s the most widely installed email application in the workplace), all you need to do is go into your ‘options’ and turn off the ‘email notifications’ setting.

Tip #3: Set-up rules to weed out junk

Implementing rules is a fantastic way to start getting a handle on what’s happening in your inbox. You can use them, for instance, to delete unwanted emails as they come in. Or, you can use rules to highlight emails coming in from certain people. Say you wanted to separate all emails coming in from Joe Smith. By setting-up rules, you could create a special folder named Joe Smith that would help you quickly review all mails coming just from him. Rules also help you forward emails automatically from certain people based on parameters you set-up. Perhaps you want to forward all mail with a specific subject line. Or maybe you want to forward all incoming messages from person A to person B. What’s beautiful about this, especially if you’re using Outlook, is that you can get very granular.

Tip #4: Get back to “traditional forms” of communication

Do you ever shake your head or just kind of laugh when you get emails from people who sit a few feet away? Do you catch yourself thinking, “Buddy, why didn’t you just come down to my office and talk to me about this?” Some might argue that this is just the nature of how we communicate. But the problem is, sending all these emails back and forth eats up an incredible amount of time.

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Next time you start typing an email to a colleague who is just one office away, try picking up the phone instead. Or walk over to the person’s office and actually chat with them. This is especially important when you get messages from people you know are going to expect a dissertation-length reply. Those kind of messages take forever to type out. When faced with an email that’s going to require vast quantities of typing, or when you realize that the communications are going to go back-and-forth like a Ping-Pong ball, why lose time at the keyboard? You can reach agreement and knock the item off your to-do list much faster by getting on the horn or having a face-to-face discussion.

Tip #5: Unsubscribe from emails you don’t need

At some point in time, you may have eagerly signed up for newsletters and other ‘send me more information’ offers on the web. But if you’re getting lots of these types of newsletters and email offers that you delete without even opening, then you don’t need them—and it’s time to do some housekeeping. Each unwanted message filling your inbox is yet another distraction. It’s one more item that has to be dealt with—causing you to spend time deleting when you could be working on productive tasks. So take action to curb spam and other junk mail. You can take yourself off mass e-blast and newsletter mailings by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of the email. If you don’t see that option, you can also reply to the email with a request to be taken off the mailing list.

Tip #6: Skip the formalities

If you’re one of those people who think we’re becoming too informal and losing nuance in our communications, this tip may ruffle your feathers. But the truth is, there are a few places where it makes sense to be less formal. Email is one of them. That’s because spending time dancing around formalities in emails is a tremendous waste of time. Let’s say you’re the manager of a team. To minimize non-essentials, one thing you might consider doing is saying to your staff, “If you’re comfortable with this, there’s no need to 6

actually reply back to me whenever you want to say ‘thanks’ for something.” Of course, in situations where an acknowledgement is required, that’s alright. But to say ‘thanks’ when you’re requesting time off for vacation or things like that is just not needed. You can also let staff and others you’re comfortable with know that they don’t need to compose the “traditional” email which looks something like this: Hello person’s name, An elegant paragraph… Greeting, Your name

Instead, you can instruct people to become less formal with you. Tell them it’s okay to relay their information as quickly as possible—in a single sentence or word. Naturally this works better for some teams than others. If you’re in a very structured organization, they may want you to be highly formal. But if you’re managing people, you can at least set-up a strategy at the micro-level so that you and your staff can communicate more efficiently. The higher up the totem pole you are, the better your chances of implementing this method and having it trickledown.

Tip #7: Reply immediately

A lot of us are guilty of reading an email and saying, “Oh, you know what? I don’t really want to deal with this right now. I’ll get back to it later.” Or sometimes, we read all of our emails first and then go back and reply to them individually. Neither of these makes sense. That’s because you’ll be much more productive if you read the email and reply back to it on the spot. You deal with it once, then it’s done. But, if you have to go back to it again later, you have to re-read and re-collect your thoughts. And more likely than not, if you don’t answer, it’s going to be hanging out somewhere in the back of your mind. Immediate replies, on the other hand, free you up to get other stuff done.

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Tip #8: Take advantage of search tools

Search tools are a great way to locate emails you need quickly. Many of the newer operating systems come with search tools already embedded, but if you don’t have any, consider installing something like Windows Desktop Search, Google Desktop, or one of the other many free tools available. This way, you don’t even need to have an organized inbox to hunt down the message you need. Of course, good organization in your inbox is important for productivity, but during those times when things are hectic and you find yourself behind, search tools allow you to find things until you get caught up.

Tip #9: Keep emotions out of your replies

When someone sends you a nasty email, your first response is to react and defend yourself. But replying with an emotional, highly-charged email is counterproductive. The best thing you can do when you get an email that upsets you is to close it, go home, and respond the next day. If you reply immediately with an angry mail, a lot of negative things can happen: 

An email of this nature will probably suck energy out of you.

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You might say something inappropriate.

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You probably won’t make your case in a manner that’s as succinct and organized as it could be.

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After you send it off, you’ll probably sit there waiting for a reply back from your heated response to see what the other person says. So instead of focusing on important things, your mind will be racing while you wait to receive the next punch by email.

So if someone’s got your blood boiling, take the higher road. Walk away from your email and deal with it the next day after you’ve had a chance to cool off.

Tip #10: Delete and organize files at set times

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If you don’t already do so, set aside some time each day, or one day each week, to organize your inbox. Besides making you more productive, this will prevent you from getting those pesky messages from your administrator letting you know that your mailbox is too big and that you need to delete mails. If your company has limits, you shouldn’t wait until you get the reminder. Start by creating project folders and getting rid of messages you no longer need. We have the tendency to think, “Oh I may need this sometime in the future.” But chances are, you probably won’t. If you’re worried, though, try using the two year rule. It’s kind of like when you’re cleaning out your closet and someone says to you, “If you haven’t worn something for two years, you’re not going to wear it, so just toss it.” You can do the same thing for email. As time goes on, the probability you will use that two year old email decreases. There are a couple of exceptions. If certain laws or regulations dictate that you keep an email, then by all means, keep it. If you have emails with employment-related issues that common sense suggests you hold on to, then hang on to those. Or if there are some projects you want to return to or that will be used as a template for other projects in the future, keep those emails as well. But there’s probably no need to keep the majority of your emails older than two years. To help you stay on top of these, you can always delete items you know you won’t need later—as soon as you finish reading them.

Get control of your inbox to maximize your value

So there you have it. Ten tips to help you become more efficient when dealing with email. When you take charge of your email habits, you’ll get work done faster and feel like you have more control. This in turn will give you a boost in overall health and a renewed outlook on your job. Contrary to what some may think, the end of email is not just around the corner. It’s here to stay. And as many of us work longer hours and absorb other people’s jobs in the down economy, it’s important to stay on top of this potentially unruly beast. But with these simple to implement tips, you can increase the number of hours you spend each day working on the business critical tasks that make you valuable in your company’s eyes.

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