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Managing your e-mail

Posted on: January 17th, 2011 by Simon Swords

For many people the task of checking email can be a daunting one. This is mainly because many of us usually have a large number of unread messages seemingly mocking us to be read!

In recent years inboxes have ballooned out of control, and as more and more collaboration and conversations go online, we have information flying in from all directions at a near non-stop pace. So how do we filter the important stuff and let the irrelevant slide by? How do we prioritize our inbox?

Here are some simple strategies for minimizing email clutter, ensuring the important messages get read and acted upon.

1. Stop living in your inbox

The first thing to realize is that for many people email is just a medium of communication and not the place of application where they need to take action. Set a time for yourself – 10 minutes, half an hour, an hour or whatever best fits your needs. Only check your email during this time, and don’t just check email but process it. That means give yourself a defined set of actions that must immediately be applied to the email.

By checking email at longer intervals you will be more likely to “process” it rather than just skim it; thereby completing the tasks required of that message. So go ahead, shut down your email application while you work on more important things, there’s no need for a distraction every few minutes!

2. Create your own ‘set of actions’ for email

These actions will depend on your job or in what context you are using email, but for most people all email actions can be narrowed down to a handful of choices. This makes it much easier to reduce information overload.

Your actions should be simple like: delete, respond, delegate or do. This will allow you to not only check but process your email much faster. Nothing will just linger on, everything will have a place and an action associated with it, and if it does not sit well then you can delete it. Take some time to make your own system or process. It might sound like a time consuming task at first but once you get used to it you will find yourself whizzing through email in a fraction of the time.

3. Use software to compartmentalise email

At first this may sound like a paradox. However, automating your email will save you time in the long run. There are many software packages that you can use to make your email management much simpler. Xobni is an excellent plug-in for Microsoft Outlook. It allows you to automatically build your address book and see recent conversations and files that you have shared with your contacts. This allows you to quickly and easily find the context sensitive information you are looking for without having to dig through a mountain of emails.

Another common habit is to use your inbox as a to-do list. Do yourself a big favor and find some other software or application for this, such as My Life Organized.  Personally I use a combination of Google Tasks on iGoogle and a plain text editor.

Another great tool to use is the flag option on popular email clients such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook. Emails can be flagged with different priorities and action items can be added to the flag. Each flag can also trigger alarms which ensure that you do not forget about the email.

Checking email is not actual work; but often a necessary part of work. So you may as well simplify, automate or delete it and set yourself free from the biggest technological distraction of today.

Simon Swords

Director

Managing Director

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