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Email Efficiency Tips
8 Steps to Organize Your Email
- Make an Email Schedule. Allocate times during the day when you will address your email. Resist the urge to respond to emails as they pop up. During your scheduled email time focus on only responding to and acting on emails in your inbox.
- Take Action. During your designated email time, read them and address them right away. Try to minimize the tendency to procrastinate and leave some responses until the next time you check email. This will only lead to a backlog.
- Put it in your Calendar. If there is an email that requires action at a later date, schedule that information on your calendar instead of keeping the email in your inbox. Utilize the pop-up reminder function on most electronic calendars to remind you of the event or action.
- Clear you Inbox. Your inbox should only hold emails that are unread or not acted upon. Your goal each time you open your email should be to get your inbox as close to empty as possible. Wading through hundreds of old emails in your inbox will zap your time and energy.
- Create (and USE) Sub folders. Your goal is to clear your inbox, so where do all of those important go? In sub folders. Create many sub folders to keep your important correspondence organized. Before filing, ask yourself “what folder name will I think of when I need this information again?”
- Utilize your SENT Folder. There is no need to file EVERY email into a sub folder. Your SENT folder is a great resource to find emails that you responded to in the past. You can feel confident deleting an email knowing that there is a log of your response to it in your sent folder.
- Only one in a String. Be aware of the string of emails kept during an email conversation. Most emails will have the entire conversation trail in the last email sent/received. Keep only that last email and delete the rest.
- Perform Folder Maintenance. Periodically delete old information in your email folders to save storage space. Deleted Items- keep one month (permanently delete any emails in your Deleted Items folder that are older than a month) Sent Items-keep one year. sub folders-as needed. At the first of each month go through your folders and delete old emails.
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