It’s early January, and we are all returning to an endless stream of emails. Most of the emails we receive are not even necessary for our work to be completed. Here at Mail2World, we would like to share the four most important things you can do to truly change your email habits and free up time to accomplish other important tasks related to your business.
Don’t open email first ting in the morning
Don’t open your email the first thing in the morning, unless your business is email like it is for us. Early in the morning is the brain is generally most alert, focused, and creative so it would be best if you focus your attention on your business’s core competencies. Choosing email as your first task of the day can be a wasted opportunity to use your mind for more important tasks for your business. Instead, try starting the day focusing on your main tasks early in the morning and leave email for later in the day. That will be discussed in more detail in the next tip.
Set aside a Block of Time for Email
If you are checking emails throughout the day you are not really focused on the specific task – email. Your attention is dispersed across many tasks reducing your ability to respond to your important emails in a timely manner. Instead allocate fixed times during the day to fully focus on email. When allocating this time, consider these questions:
- How often? Determine in the course of a day how often you should concentrate on email. This depends on the nature of your business and how many mission critical emails you receive through.
- How long? How much time should you devote to answering emails? The answer depends on you. If you only plan on answering email once a day, then we suggest a one or two-hour blog of time. If you plan on having more frequent email sessions, then take the total number of sessions and divide them by one or two hours. The answer to these questions will give you the length of time you should spend in each email session. Whatever you do, don’t check your email on autopilot. Create separation between yourself and your inbox; give yourself time to focus specifically on other tasks.
Create Email Filters or rules
Creating filters, also sometimes known as rules, is another effective way to prioritize messages that bombarding your inbox. Use filters to sort important emails so you know which to tackle first. Sorting messages into separate folders allows for easy organization of messages based on subject or sender, or by personal or business relationship. Incoming messages will automatically be placed (i.e. filtered) into the appropriate folders. To learn more about how to create and use filters and rules, read our “Using Email Filters, Folders and other Tips” post.
Purge Unnecessary Emails
Unsubscribe, delete and file away any unnecessary emails that continuously distract you from accomplishing your daily work goals. Purging useless emails will reduce the need to check emails constantly because they are not in your inbox acting as a distraction. Therefore, purging unnecessary emails is an important step in better email management.
Email should always be used in ways to enhance your business, not as a distraction from it. This is good email management should always be considered.
