5 Quick Tips to Managing Your Email

I am not going to get too hung up on the fact that “managing our email” is a to-do task that our grandparents didn’t have to worry about {mostly because I’m pretty sure they had other things to worry about:  like whether or not they could afford the convenience of running water}, but still, it won’t stop me from complaining about the ever-present reality of a daily emails.

Managing email so that you don’t open up your inbox to find, say 1134 {totally random and hypothetical number} new emails, is key to sanity and time management.   Nothing can suck the hours of the day away faster than attending to emails.

Here are my top 5 quick tips to managing the information highway without giving it years of your life:

1. Establish email rules.  Turn off notifications and only check your emails during established times.  When emails that require your attention roll in and you check them constantly, they distract you from other tasks.  When it is time to check your email, check it, and handle the issues then, when you are prepared to give them your full attention.
2. DELETE the junk right away.  Stores love to try to convince you that there Tuesday sale will be the last and best sale they will ever have.  Not true, stores, not true.  Unless you are in the market for something specific, delete those emails without even allowing yourself to read the subject line.  It will clear out the crap right away–and if  you do head to that store later in the week, you can just do a search through your trash folder to see if there was a coupon you missed.
3. Create an organization system.  Creating folders for emails that you can deal with at a later date helps to clear your inbox of clutter, and leaves only the stuff that you need to respond to right away {once you respond, put it in a folder or delete it}.  Keeping your inbox clear is key.
4. Unsubscribe from lists that you no longer want to receive emails from.  Hobbies and interests change, don’t keep receiving emails and deleting them from stores/sites you are no longer interested in.  Take 5 minutes each day to click unsubscribe on a couple of them.
5. Keep your words simple.  Responses don’t need to read like a Faulkner novel, just be clear and concise and move on.  Really, the pleasantries that go with snail mail need not apply, that is the inherent beauty of email.  Be all business.

How do you effectively manage emails?

~Mavis