Mike Callaghan, Process Prodigy contributor
734 messages, 386 unread, and that was just his inbox. He also had 47 folders with names such as “Free”, “Projects” – with seven sub-folders, “Articles”, “To Do”, and “Possible Problems”. As I probed him with questions about how he kept up with all his e-mail, he confessed his deepest, darkest secret - that one day last December, in a state of total frustration, he had simply deleted all of the messages in his inbox and then told people that he hadn’t received their messages. That didn’t actually solve any problems… by the end of January, he was pushing 500 messages once again.
So, what systems can you put in place so that you are in control of your e-mail and it’s not the other way around?
1. Set appointed e-mail times. I check e-mail in morning, after lunch, and in the late afternoon. The rest of the time, I work offline and am not distracted every time a chime sounds to announce new e-mail. If the mailman delivered your mail one letter at a time an irregular intervals throughout the day, would you run out to your mailbox ten times each day? That would be an inefficient system, wouldn’t it? Even a ridiculous system. E-mail, because it is electronic, does arrive all day and night at irregular intervals, but there is nothing to say that you should check it ten, twenty or more times a day.
2. Use filters to automatically sort incoming messages. At my home, when the mailman delivers the US postal mail, I instantly sort it and classify it as junk, bill, or personal. I have three piles at my house. With e-mail software, you can use rules and filters to have your computer do a quick sort for you. All e-mail software programs have some kind of sort filter for incoming messages. You can customize based on sender, words in the title, etc. I have a rule in place to automatically sort all messages containing the words “sex”, “free”, and the “%” symbol into a folder named “Spam”. Approximately 98% of the messages in this folder turn out to be junk. I can quickly scan the messages in this folder, read the important ones and delete the rest. You can experiment with different words like “Viagra” or “Nigeria”.
3. Turn off your e-mail. Yes, this is scary for most people. However, when you are working do you enjoy people popping into your office unannounced to interrupt you? Most people feel no guilt screening telephone calls or letting voice mail answer, but these same people seem to feel that every e-mail demands an immediate look-see and response. I use Microsoft Exchange with its send/receive button (just like all e-mail programs). After I have downloaded my e-mail, I work offline. I respond to or delete all of the e-mail in my inbox, and only then do I click the send/receive button.
4. Classify each e-mail as “Two Minute Response” or “ More Details Needed”. Start with the e-mail that arrived last and read each one. If the message can be answered in less than two minutes, answer it right away. Delete the message when you are done, because a copy of this message is saved in your “Sent Mail” folder. For those messages that require more detail, leave them in your inbox and answer them later. Lastly for the e-mails that you are keeping for your records, create a folder for a specific client or project and move that message to that folder. Now, take the time to answer each e-mail and then hit the send/receive button.
Now it’s time to take control of your email life… get the message?
© 2009 Beth Schneider, Process Prodigy, Inc. Want to reprint this article? Feel free as long as you include the following: Beth Schneider, President of Process Prodigy Inc., www.processprodigy.com, along with her team of highly sought after operations consultants, reveal the insider secrets billion-dollar corporations pay thousands of dollars for. Specializing in process creation, Process Prodigy tools and techniques have helped entrepreneurs increase productivity by as much as 600%, and revenues by as much as 250%. Visit www.processprodigy.com/ezine and grab your FREE systems starter kit valued at $297.00.
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