10 Best-Practise Ideas for a better Email Management

toby — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:35:19 +0000

At the beginning of each week, try to have an inbox without a „scroll bar“. It helps a lot to plan your week and have a real overview over all matters related to email.
Do email in the afternoon, not in the morning. Except for the dispatching of works and urgent things that need attention because team members are waiting for, that do in the morning. Otherwise think of mornings as your most productive hours, so don’t use them for email alone!
If you use folders, it pays to check which folders you really need and which not. A folder with three messages in it is probably not worth the administration! A yearly analysis is fine and saves time for searching and filing throughout the year.
Put out of sight what you don’t need to see within the next 4 weeks – or even months. It just hinders you to work effectively. But make sure you create a followup if you want to be remembered or find it eventually.
Use email as email, don’t treat it like a phone! If you want an immediate reply or need a real conversation, call – or use an instant messaging facility. Otherwise you end up with a number of „micro-emails“ that all just need your attention eventually in terms of moving or putting them out of sight.
Don’t let email “get to you”. If you have followed idea number 1, you most likely can let your inbox grow over the week and do only those things which are really important. Use labels, tags or flags to mark them appropriately and be disciplined in answering those only. Leave the rest for the end of the week cleanup!
Change company related mail from individual mail into a team environment. Stop using personal email addresses such as alex@stressinternational.com (with exceptions) and replace them with generic email accounts (info@, sales@, support@ and so on) and share those with the members of the team.
Newsletters, RSS Feeds, Twitter Followers and so on which you don’t read anyway, unsubscribe!
Don’t permit yourself emails in your inbox which have „passed“ the expiry date of 12 months. Chances are that if a mail is older than one year, you have just avoided making the necessary decisions what to do about the matter. So simply „decide“.
Finally guide your staff on how to use email effectively, if they can’t cope with it, you also suffer. But be practical: would you listen to anybody who has not mastered the subject himself?

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10 Best-Practise Ideas for a better Email Management