I received a lot of comments about the article Managing Your Email however, one comment gave me pause, it read “Carrie, your suggestions are great, I’m following a lot of them but email is still running my life, what can I do?”
I realized that dealing with email is a two step process. The first step, which I wrote about earlier, is managing what actually comes in. The second step is handling or “doing” your email.
Email is the kind of thing that can easily take control of your life and get in your way of the things that you really want to focus your time and energy on. With that in mind we need to take control of how we actually “do” email.
Step2: Five Strategies to manage the time you spend “doing” email.
- Turn off the notifications. There is nothing more distracting and more tantalizing than the “You Got Mail!” notification. Not only does the “You Got Mail” notification pull you away from whatever else you were doing but it also declares that the email you received is more important than what you were focusing on. Go ahead and shut it off and stay focused on whatever you are doing.
- Pick when you will “do” email. Email has become an important means of communication. You can’t ignore it but you can make sure it does not consume your day. Choose a couple of times during the day for you to dedicate to looking at it and dealing with it. During the rest of your day do the things that you’ve deemed important and do not allow your day to be driven by other people’s priorities.
- Handle your email. Sure it’s great to sort your email and prioritize them so that you act on the most important ones but don’t spend your whole time sorting, spend the time acting.
- Don’t use your inbox as a “to-do” list. When your inbox overflows with email you will become overwhelmed and more inclined to spend your email time sorting. Decide what you are going to act on (for real) and delete the things that you aren’t going to do and delete (or file) the things you’ve already taken care of.
- Cross one thing off your “to-do” list BEFORE you check your email in the morning. Email can suck you in so cross one of your own priorities off you list before you are tempted by someone else’s priorities
Do you have a strategy that works for you? Please share it in the comments below!
Good advice. I need to do all five of these strategies. I turned my notification off so four more to go. Thanks
You’ll be amazed at how much of a difference this will make! Let me know how it goes!