Email Savvy

I heard a great quote the other day: "In order to stay on top of everything, you can never got to the bottom of anything."

I can COMPLETELY relate with your situation - I currently get hundreds of emails every day and struggle to keep up. Here's three things I do:

1. Schedule times to check and deal with your email several times a day, instead of letting it run in the background. It's too distracting otherwise.
2. When checking mail, immediately reply to everything you can, instead of saying "I'll get to this later." Keep replies brief and on-point.
3. Get comfortable and fast with the delete key - not all messages merit a reply.

Also, check out this fantastic, thoughtful meditation on email overload and what to do about it by fellow Biznik supporting member Raja Abburi: What's Wrong With Email.

Indeed, travel has taught me the same thing: it's possible to get through a mountain of email quite quickly when you do it all at once.

If you need any more evidence and ammunition for changing the way you handle your inbox, and strategies for how to communicate that to clients, consider reading The 4-Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss.

Click on the green "formatting help" button, located in lower right below the comment box. It shows you how to format text into a live link using markdown syntax. You can cut and paste the example into your comment, then replace the dummy text and link to biznik with your own info and url.

I find it's useful to have a number of different email addresses for different purposes. Have one mailbox which you use only with close friends, family, and your bank. This is handy if you're traveling and have to check email at an internet cafe where you're paying by the minute. No time will be wasted on spam. You should always have a disposable mailbox which you use when submitting to sites which might generate spam, etc. My web host allows me to have an almost unlimited number of online mailboxes and I'll often open one for a specific purpose and close it again when that need is gone. It's always a good idea to put an auto-reply on any mailbox you close after ticking the "discard all incoming mail" box. My auto-replies tell people to go to my website and click a "Contact Us" link which brings up a special form which requires one to enter a password. That stymies the robots while allowing humans to get back in touch.

Some people have complicated email accounts. I've had AOL for 12 years and although I agree with the general consensus that AOL sucks on most accounts, their email system is great.

Space-delete, space-delete, repeat, repeat, repeat can get you through a lot of emails in a short time. The subject line is all I need to know which emails get that. (Like almost all the forwarded junk - including the forwarded junk from my wife or family - I have better things to do.)

(On that note I always try to convey info in the subject lines of my emails so that people will know what's going on and can delete my email if it's not wanted)

I open other emails and, like Dan, try to deal with them right then. (Just like paper, the fewer times you have to handle it, the less time it takes up.)

The rest stay in Old Mail until I get around to them and want to deal with whatever they require.... sometime they get the space-delete treatment depending on how crazy things get.

With this approach I can check new emails rapidly and as often as is convenient and stay caught up. With travel there is a build up but not too bad. Even with an old email address and no real efforts to screen people out, I don't get too many in a day, rarely more than a couple dozen.

I hope this helps a little.

I understand. For me the new email window is usually open and the little jumping mailbox signals new traffic. Checking it is usually only a stop on the way to the Biznik site to do business or to doing business in some other way, whether it's a call, a fax or some other site activity.

I never paid attention to the fact that I do check it several times a day some days and only first and last thing in the day other days.

Debra-

From a productivity perspective, I encourage you to do a few things that I have found helpful and encourage my clients to do:

• Dedicate a specific time for email: Now I know this is a touchy subject, but email creates a reactionary work environment and you can greatly increase your effectiveness if you set aside specific times each day.

• Avoid opening email first thing in the morning. By delayed reading your email, you can dedicate this high-energy morning time to a 1st tier objective.

• Create rules to manage and prioritize emails: Several email programs filter emails directly into folders, allowing you to read them when time permits.

• Turn off chimes: It annoyed me so much to be distracted by the chime when a new email arrived in my inbox. Did you know you can turn that off? It’s a great thing.
  

I help a lot of clients decrease the amount of email they send and receive. We blog on it at often at (http://savvysolutionsorganizing.com/blog/).

Debra-

You are welcome. I use Outlook and I use the "rules" to direct emails into certain locations. I love it. I purchase products online for clients, as well as use several social networking sights and all emails each go in their own home.

If you use Outlook you can find "rules and alerts" under Tools on the scroll down bar. Just follow the prompts.

Hope that helps. Have a super weekend! Christa

Debra: I like the idea of only checking emails at certain times during the day. Does it work for me? Sometimes. If I'm out of the office (which I am frequently), I can't. In your business, I'm sure you have a lot of email so it may be more problematic. I do have filters that get rid of alot of the junk. Thank God! Good luck and keep us posted as to how you solved your problem. Take care.

I'm a bit late to this post, but I'd like to chime in on the topic.

I have a couple of email rules that I try to adhere to:

1. Choose Voice Over Email: Pick up the phone and call. Give the human and personal touch as much as possible. Better yet, meet face to face over coffee.

2. Never Say No Via Email: Make a phone call or schedule a face-to-face meeting and to say no, but we can do . . .

Mark | http://walterslawblog.blogspot.com/

On Outlook E-mail use folders and subfolders. Then use the create rules, which someone has suggested to get the E-mail into the applicable folders. If you click on Personal Folders at the top of your folder list, your Personal Folder - Outlook Today will show on the right. Customize it to show only your important folders that are the ones you would need to respond to quickly. You will be able to see when you get new E-mails in those folders. If you need help, call me and we will set up a time for me to help you. No charge, of course!

You are welcome. I juggle three different businesses. I have to have something like that.

I second the advice on Outlook folders and the use of rules to automatically direct related emails into a single folder to review at a time of your own choosing.

The other thing I've found helpful is to flag emails for followup, a built-in rule on Outlook. So as I view the overall list of emails (I NEVER have the preview window open to prevent getting sucked into reading stuff before I've decided overall priority), I click on the followup flag at the far right for messages I know I will want to spend time on and probably will require some kind of action.

Then, again at a time of my choosing, I open the followup folder and work my way through.

Saves a lot of time and help me focus quickly.