I’ve written a few pieces on managing email in the past and it’s something I love thinking about and discussing. Email is just so disruptive and too many people use it in ways that kill productivity. In case you didn’t know, I recently went back to work full time and one of the cool things we do at the office is that every so often everyone is assigned a teaching assignment. Everyone picks a topic and then gets to teach it for 15 or so minutes. Almost everyone keeps their email client open all day long and use email to send things that really didn’t need sending. As a general rule, every email you send generates two replies!
I volunteered to each first and my day is Monday. I’ve got pretty much everything together (I’ll share it here too) but I wanted to get some feedback. What are some of your favorite tricks for managing email? What’s working or not working in your office?
I’m definitely not perfect when it comes to email, but I do have something that works decently for me.
First, I use outlook. That way I get the sender’s name *plus* the first line of the email. I manage most of my email deletions that way with minimum fuss and distraction. It definitely helps keep the numbers down. I know the people who send me emails will either say it in the first sentence or in the subject of the email. (Which obviously won’t work for everyone.)
Second, I go through all emails in the morning. I have an allotted time in the morning and emails are how I start my working day.
Last, I only bring outlook up for a prolonged look during my scheduled breaks. I’m a bit protective of my breaks, so I only usually use about five minutes to quickly skim over things, look for any urgent emails I’ve missed (and reply to them first), and reply to others if I have time/if I feel like it.
Not exactly email management 101, but whatever works, right? :)
My email habits:
1. Twice a day max. I block off 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon to read and respond to email, and I don’t look other times unless I get an important call about something urgent.
2. If you can act on something in an email in less than 5 minutes, do it and delete/archive the email. Get it out of your way so it doesn’t nag at you.
3. Get stuff out of your inbox. Move important stuff you need to keep (and be ruthless with yourself on what you really need to keep) to an archive folder, delete everything else. Limit the inbox to things you’re working on at the moment.
That’s it for me. My rules are simple on purpose, so I’ll follow them.
I like the teaching idea. I don’t have any tips although the one I usually use is not opening email when I have stuff to do. I just close outlook so I can’t see it. Not the best way to do it :D
Thanks for the feedback! Vinnie, you and I are very much on track in how we do things. I’m a big fan of Inbox Zero and the Tyranny of Email. I’m excited to be passing on better email management tips to my coworkers who might not have read some of this stuff. Email is a big problem for everyone and I think having a set way to dealing with it helps.
I’ll post my notes later tonight or tomorrow on what I went over.
That’s cool that the company does that. Big building block for co-workers. I’m not the best at email but the thing that helps me the most is folders. I have a folder for:
Respond today
Family
Friends
Events
Movies
Celebrities
Video Games
This way I’m able to keep track of everything I’m working on. I’ll go through the folders once a week and clean them out.