This might come as a shock to many, but professionals spend up to 28% of their days managing their email accounts. That’s approximately three hours every day lost in reading, reverting, and deleting emails.
So, how to manage emails in a way that breaks this cycle? To help you answer this question we will direct your efforts to our top four best practices when it comes to email management. Let’s have a look.
Inculcate Healthy Practices for Efficient Inbox Management
A cluttered mailbox can throw your entire schedule off the charts, considering that it takes a viable amount of time to sort them out. The best way to approach a heavy-duty inbox is to have a bunch of healthy email practices by your side that you follow regularly.
For instance, if you receive a heavy flow of work emails daily, then it makes sense for you to arrange them in proper folders for easy accessibility. If you own multiple accounts, then opt for an application that brings all emails in one place.
However, there’s more to it than that. Let’s take you through some of these healthy email practices that go a long way in helping you manage your time well and enhance your overall productivity.
1. Regulate your inbox
Too many unread emails can be visually overwhelming; therefore, regulate your inbox and keep it tidy. If an email doesn’t need your attention, archive it immediately. If an email requires a quick response, then get it done. If an email requires some sort of thought before action, snooze it and come back later.
2. Cut down on email chains
Don’t let long email threads stretch on for eternity. They not only eat up your time but can also lead to heavy miscommunication. Ask questions that are relevant and not open-ended. That way you get clear replies, and in the future, you can always filter your emails using the same question.
Pro tip: Use personal chats for ongoing conversations. They are quick, easy to respond to, and easily accessible.
3. Subscribe to only relevant material
Contrary to what you think, you don’t need to read everything. Keep only relevant subscriptions that benefit you and your daily work and ditch the stuff that doesn’t provide any value.
4. Empty the trash
Empty trash is a sign of a clean and efficient mailbox. However, the task should always be kept at the end of your to-do list. Concentrate on cleaning your inbox first, then jump on emptying the trash.
5. Go airplane mode on emails
Every time your system pings on receiving new mail, you end up losing focus. Turn off the notification and set a time during the day when you can access your mailbox.
While these practices will help you set the path to a cleaner inbox, you need to learn some important inbox organization skills that will further help you declutter your mailbox. Let’s dive deeper.
Keep Your Inbox Organized
Imagine waking up on a busy Monday morning to a cluttered inbox buzzing with unread emails. As overwhelming as this may sound, there are effective ways to get your inbox under control.
As a first step towards organizing your inbox, you need to divide your work into categories. It will make your job much easier, as you now know which category you need to attack the earliest and what can wait.
For instance, unlike most email tools, Gmail uses labels to categorize emails. You can create a new label, and every time you receive a new email from the same ID, it automatically gets diverted to the particular label. Save up on precious time and energy, just by putting in a little effort.
To get you started, here are a few categories you can explore:
- Immediate response needed
- Short on deadline
- Quick follow-ups
- Easy to close
- Scheduled / upcoming
Now let’s explore a few other actionable ways you can work to get your inbox in order:
1. Never underestimate filters
Filters help you declutter your inbox and maintain an efficient workflow. Additionally, they also help you in spotting spam mail and regulating a more productive approach to work. The icing on the cake is that you can customize filters in all leading email services, like Gmail and Outlook.
2. Create a whitelist and blacklist
An email whitelist is a list of senders you approve of and want to hear from regularly. Blacklisters, on the other hand, are deemed spammers. Segregating your lists into these categories is important for two reasons: firstly, to never miss an important email from the whitelist, and secondly, to not waste time reading emails from the blacklisters.
3. Act quickly to avoid piling on
To cut down the clutter, we suggest you instantly attack emails that are easy to close, on priority, and those that require immediate action like a quick follow-up. This will help you cut down on the pile and boost your productivity levels because that’s one task off your list.
While these steps are a great way to get your inbox more organized, without proper time management, they might end up becoming counterproductive. This brings us to our next point.
Achieve Your Inbox Zero Goal Through Time Management
Checking your emails on a regular basis can become a tedious task if it eats too much into your productive hours.
Rather than running away from your overflowing inbox, work towards changing your email habits. Make it a routine to check your emails at least once a day. All major email platforms, like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo, have their own mobile applications. Download the app and skim your emails while enjoying your morning coffee or daily commute to work.
Here are a few other tips you can keep up your sleeves to optimize your time and make your workflow better:
1. Be selective
Schedule a time, say during lunch hours or when you’re taking a coffee break, to go through emails that don’t require immediate action. These might be your favorite newsletters or client emails that can be pushed to a later date. Be selective in what you read and respond to so you can save time.
2. Have a dedicated email time
It is common practice for most people to have their email tabs open on their browsers and revisit their emails several times a day. This not only acts as a major distraction but also hinders the workflow. Set a schedule with a dedicated time slot only for reading and replying to emails.
3. Schedule and automate using email lists
Leverage the power of technology to schedule your emails. Draft them, time them, and leave them alone. With modern email clients like Maibird and Mailchimp, you also have the option of automating your responses for follow-ups, query forms, and out-of-office messages.
4. Use templates
Unless and until you have to write a professional email from scratch, use preset templates that let you draft repetitive emails in a jiffy. The trick might be old, but it’s a definite time-saver, especially if you have a mailbox full of pending reverts.
5. Blast emails
If you use emails as a way of staying in touch with your clients or as a marketing tool to gain more customers, use email blasts to save time. Mass email services let you draft clean and targeted emails you can send to multiple people at the same time, thereby avoiding the hassle of drafting the same mail over and over again.
6. Always have your inbox in order
Keep your inbox organized with categories, labels, and folders. Use shortcut keys, customize your filters, and move around your inbox faster. SaneBox is a tool that does categorization for you. It will automatically save your important emails in a designated folder and distractions in a SaneLater folder.
7. Track time spent on emails
Knowing how much time you spend on different activities is key to better time management – it helps you see which tasks consume too much of your resources and how efficient you actually are. Hence, start tracking time spent on emails and use actiTIME to make the process as simple as possible. This robust software includes both manual timesheets and automatic timers that will easily take you one step closer to higher productivity.
Efficient time management skills, combined with all the steps above, will take you out of your procrastination slumber and polish your productivity. Also, it should make it easier for you to put in 100% at work.
Coupled with the right set of email management tools, you now have the secret sauce to perfect your daily workflow. Let’s explore them further.
Use Email Management Tools to Organize Your Emails
The tips shared above will bring a significant change in the way you access your emails. However, technology can always make the process smoother and faster.
There are several tools available on the market that can help you hit the bull’s eye with email management and enhance productivity levels. For every task you’re looking for, there’s software you can use. Let’s have a look at some of them.
1. Mailbird for managing multiple accounts
We often have two different email identities we use for professional and personal purposes. This leads to constant juggling between two applications, which might lead to distraction and miscommunication.
A unified inbox, such as one offered by Mailbird, makes your emails appear in one mailbox, giving you the freedom to access all your accounts at the same time. This is a great hack for efficient time management, and it also makes your emails more organized.
2. Moosend for managing a mailing list
A mailing list is your total number of subscribers to whom you want to direct your content. At times, this list becomes redundant and needs polishing through efficient email list management. By using applications like Moosend, you can create an email marketing campaign and brush up on your mailing list. It also comes with an email segmentation feature that helps in customer targeting.
3. FollowUpThen for setting follow-up reminders
When you have a tsunami of emails in your inbox, a few follow-ups here and there tend to get swayed away with the waves. With tools like FollowUpThen, you can set reminders for important follow-ups. When you send an email with the application, it automatically comes back, reminding you of the specific time and date mentioned in the email. Gmail also has a feature that reminds you after five to six days to follow up with a client.
4. Maildrop for avoiding spam and junk emails
There are times when you want to sign up for a service but are concerned that your email might get shared with unsolicited websites. In situations like these, you can opt for Maildrop, which blocks junk and spam emails, thereby saving you from the hassle of receiving tons of emails you don’t want to read. It creates a temporary email address that lets you share your email ID with websites with poor security and possible spammers.
5. Unroll.me for mass unsubscription
Unsubscribing from one or two websites might sound easy, but what happens when there are multiple pages you no longer want to be a part of? Unroll.me is a one-of-a-kind application that lets you mass-unsubscribe from newsletters that are no longer relevant to your daily work or life. It also gives you the choice of organizing your subscriptions using labels, making it convenient for you to skim through your inbox.
6. Intradyn for archiving important emails
Deleting unwanted emails might not always be the best solution, especially if it involves a threat to data. You might need to revisit certain emails time and again for various purposes, but you can’t have them clouding your inbox. Use Intradyn, the ultimate email archiving solution that lets you protect your incoming and outgoing emails, and you’ll be at much more peace knowing your emails are safe and secure.
7. Sortd for better collaboration
Gmail is one of the most highly used email platforms, particularly because it’s familiar and comes with an easy user interface. However, things might get a little messy when you work in a big company and need effective team management. To smooth out your workflow with Gmail, use Sortd, which is loaded with features like a task manager, virtual workspace, customized interface, team boards, email tracking, and much more.
Managing an untamed mailbox can become twice as smooth with the right software by your side. These tools offer you efficient solutions for managing your time, boosting collaboration, getting on top of your productivity game, and helping you keep track of your email habits.
How to Manage Emails: End Thoughts
These tips and tools can get you started on your way to tackling a messy inbox, but they can only help you if you have your goals and priorities in place. Set your aim, work towards finding the solution that fits the puzzle perfectly, and then take the plunge.
At the end of the day, everything revolves around you having a healthy relationship with your email and working smarter to achieve more goals, every day.
This post is contributed to actiTIME by Roman Shvydun who writes informative articles about everything related to marketing, business, productivity, workplace culture, etc.
