I say this all the time because it's true. And if you are the "Chief Laundry Officer" in your house you will concur - just when you think you've washed the last dirty sock you turn around and the dirty clothes basket if full again. Same goes for email. Just when think you've answered your last outstanding email you turn around and you get hit with more.
My husband and I both work from home and sometimes we email each other because we are too lazy to walk down (or up) one flight o f stairs to actually talk to each other. I don't think you can deny the fact that email has become the primary form of communication throughout the business world and maybe even in our personal lives.
If you’re like me, you get a lot of email every day. And managing it is essential to managing your career. With our department being mostly virtual we rely heavily on email to communicate because we can't just get up and walk down the hall to ask a question or even just say good morning. Some of us carry a Blackberry, the iPhone, or some other smart phone with instant and constant access to everything and everyone every minute of the day - weekends included. It can easily get overwhelming if you let it. Sometimes we are copied on chains of emails that do not require a response at all but the FYI nature of them is appreciated. What do you do with these emails? And sometimes we'd rather not be CC'd at all because we aren't sure how we fit in and trying to figure out how we fit in is more stressful than dealing with the issue itself.
Thankfully I am not alone in my pursuit of "taming my inbox." Our team offers training on this subject matter and there is plenty of help on the internet. Last year, Chris Brogan blogged about this very subject -- I wonder if his success has continued nearly a year later? And, at our National Meeting in November, Shally Steckerl, a talent acquisition consultant, shared his secrets with us. I’m on a mission to not be a slave to my inbox and further honing my inbox system. After reading about how this can be done I've pulled together my Top 10 List of how to become the master of my inbox.
1. Sort your inbox by subject and create folders by subject or person.
2. Color code messages from known senders.
3. Unsubscribe from some of your mailing lists - you can't read them all, right?
4. As an alternative to #3 create a "to read" folder and at the same time create a "waiting for" folder for emails that you are waiting for some sort of follow up and a "to do" folder for emails that require your follow up.
5. Use the rules and filters to help organize your emails and your time. Here is an online tutorial that might be helpful.
6. Establish the day's top priorities before ever opening your inbox.
7. Turn off the alert sound. This one is going to be hard for me.
8. Wait to respond, especially to mass emails. Ask yourself, "Does everyone really need to weigh in?"
9. Avoid multi tasking to avoid mistakes and give your full attention to incoming and outgoing messages.
10. Do an annual spring cleaning and permanently delete what you don't need to keep.
Do you have some favorite ways of taming your inbox? What works for you and why?
Oh and by the way...
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
I promise NOT to send you an email wishing you "lots o' luck" on this (or after this) day.
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Up later this week in honor of Women's History Month, guest blogger, Peri Bridger Chief Human Resources Officer who will answer the question, “What should I do to best manage my career?”
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