Recently, my wife and I went for a morning breakfast date and when I got to my desk there was what seemed to be another 100 emails greeting me. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when facing a lot of email, but here are some tips I use to better manage my inbox.
7 tips for taking control of your inbox
Our inboxes are overflowing
Most professionals’ primary method of communication is by email. Factor in the spam, office threads that don’t really concern you, marketing cruft, personal email, the few relevant pieces of that need your attention, and it’s easy to understand why our inboxes are overflowing.
To ensure I don’t get overwhelmed, I manage my inbox so it doesn’t look like a hoarder‘s house. I try to keep less than 30 emails in my inbox at any one time. Ideally, when I get to zero new emails in my inbox, I shut down for the night.
Having less email enables you to be more productive, focus on important emails, and not feel overwhelmed.
Seven tips for taking control of your inbox
Here are seven tips to help you take control of your email, instead of allowing your email to take control of you.
- Immediately prioritize your incoming emails. As emails come in, rapidly think, “What is this email about and how do I need to respond? Is it urgent? Can I delegate it to someone else? Can I reply later?”
- Respond fast. For important emails, like one from your boss asking if you responded to a client, reply immediately. Typing a simple “Yes” and hitting send means you can archive that email!
- Delegate quickly. Even though you get a lot of emails, it doesn’t mean that you have to answer them. If you have an assistant or a team, be sure to liberally forward emails to them, for them to own and respond to.
- Automatically filter your email. Filters mean you won’t even see a lot of email that comes in until you want to. Maybe there’s an email newsletter that always comes from AAA or any one of thousands of emails like it. A filter can send these emails to a folder that you can look at later.
- Use a different email address for email newsletters. I have my “main” email address, but I have a secondary email address I use for just email newsletters. This is an even more powerful filter as the emails don’t even go to my main email address.
- Email is not your task or project tool. My main tool for managing projects is a dedicated task management tool. I add all task and project-related emails to my task management service. Detailed to-dos and projects now can be in their right place—a project management tool—not my email inbox.
- Subject lines are so important. When you email someone, use a descriptive subject line. For example, “Client review of house design” or “Pizza for Jerry’s surprise party.” Subject lines like this are better than “Follow up” or “Hello” or “Meeting planned.” In fact, when I’m replying to someone and the content of my message has changed, I change the subject line as well!
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More tips for getting yourto inbox to zero
Here are a few more tips to help you manage your communication overall.
When people message you on other platforms, ask them to email you. This way you won’t have communications going on in LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. You can try to streamline your communications through one system.
For those of you with a community of fans or customers, as opposed to corporate email, direct people to email you via your website. By using a website, you can force people to use a specific subject line and have emails sent to the property team member or be filtered more easily.
Email is a powerful and reliable and straightforward form of communication. However, if you don’t manage your inbox, it’ll overwhelm you.
Treat your email like an orderly kitchen sink: When dirty dishes come in, frequently wash them and put them away. You’ll be much more productive if you manage your inbox effectively.
When people message you on other platforms, ask them to email you. This way you won’t have communications going on in LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. You can try to streamline your communications through one system.
For those of you with a community of fans or customers, as opposed to corporate email, direct people to email you via your website. By using a website, you can force people to use a specific subject line and have emails sent to the property team member or be filtered more easily.
Email is a powerful and reliable and straightforward form of communication. However, if you don’t manage your inbox, it’ll overwhelm you.
Treat your email like an orderly kitchen sink: When dirty dishes come in, frequently wash them and put them away. You’ll be much more productive if you manage your inbox effectively.
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