Jun, 2016 : Gain Time in your Week by Organizing your Email

📅 June 17, 2016 - Did you know email is one of the biggest time-wasters for professionals? It's one of those things that never ends and yet it's so important to running a business or maintaining relationships. People often get lost in the never-ending email train in which they end up wasting precious work hours to catch up on the latest emails they received or they want to send one out.

Usually those emails are ones that could have been better planned for or could have waited until after work to be dealt with. If you've ever taken the time to look at how many hours per week are utilized on dealing with emails, it may cross your mind that those hours could be used on much more important things. Take a look at how organizing your email can actually save you a few hours every week just by following a simple system and better managing time spent on your email.

Organize you inbox

A great first step is to start organizing your inbox better by setting up folders and tabs. For example, users of Google's Gmail have the option to set up tabs in which Google will add labels before you even view your messages. When you get a personal email from a friend mixed in with client emails, Gmail will be able to put a “personal” tab on one and a “primary” tab on the other.

It will be much easier for you to filter business emails only or personal emails only depending on what you are looking for in that moment. These labels and filtering makes checking your email more specific to the task. You can also try tools like SaneBox which works to look out for the important emails for you compared to those that are junk.

Work on reducing email

Once you've worked on folders, tabs, and filters, you may have noticed that there are many emails that you get but don't really need. Those subscriptions to online catalogues or blogs you never read are probably just cluttering your inbox. Sometimes taking the time to reduce your emails will actually save you time in the future of having less to navigate through. If you have more than 5 email newsletters, you are probably feeling overwhelmed. Try the tool Unroll.me to reduce your subscriptions.

When you are trying to handle client emails, you can try to apply filters to service requests vs. questions or complaints. Perhaps you can utilize email less with your clients by setting up an FAQ page on your website or checking in with clients before they have to email you with questions. Try to schedule your emails differently with Boomerang or Inbox Pause for Gmail which helps you pause email deliveries in order to receive it in batches.

Expectations

Try to manage your expectations by realizing that your email is always going to have a new, unread message and that stopping to check it all day is never going to stop that. You have to stop killing your productivity and designating times during the day for email. If you delay your responses in order to avoid reducing your work quality, you'll be much more likely to retain your clients.

Considering having automated responses sent to clients to let them know you've received their inquiry and that you'll have a response within 1-3 business days. You can also publish your policies on your website with how long to expect responses. Be sure to never respond outside of business hours because it will make it look like you are available 24/7.

Lastly, don't be afraid to set up alerts for your most urgent messages, hiring a virtual assistant to help you manage the workload, and remind yourself that you aren't obligated to respond to every email. In fact, most of the emails you get you probably don't need to respond to, even though you think you do.

Sometimes people forget that your time is valuable and that you are allowed to ask for help, to not feel obligated to every person who emails you, and to only check in a few times per week. When you organize your email, you gain time back into your week.