Managing Your Business Email – Taming the Inbox Monster

Although email communication was originally intended to save time by cutting down the number of face-to-face interactions needed to accomplish tasks, most professionals find that it’s spiraled out of control – eating up far more time and energy than in-person meetings ever did!  If you’re facing a serious case of email overload that’s preventing you from growing your business effectively, consider the following steps to help you tame the inbox monster:

Step #1 – Establish a Filing System

The key to developing an email management system that’s effective and efficient lies in determining how you’ll handle storing the messages you receive.  Although leaving every message you receive in your inbox is – technically – a filing strategy, failing to find a proper home for each email can add to your stress level and cause you to misplace important information.

So before we can even begin discussing how to handle email messages on a day-to-day basis, we need to lay the groundwork for our new organizational system by putting a filing system in place first.  Of course, the specific folders that you’ll want to make use of will depend on your unique business needs, but you can start by considering some of the following options:

• Create email folders by client – Directing messages from your customers to client-specific folders can be a good way to group relevant emails together and make it easier to access information quickly when working on client projects.  If your email system allows for multiple levels of folders and sub-folders, you can even create folders for active and archived projects within each client folder.
• Create email folders by task – Alternatively, you may find it easier to group email messages according to the specific tasks they relate to.  For example, if you prefer to batch process your tasks and handle all writing projects at once, a “Writing” folder (with client-specific sub-folders, when possible) will make it easy for you to quickly see which items can be done at the same time.
• Create email folders by priority – Another possibility for managing emails is to create folders based on priority level (for example, “High priority”, “Due within a week” or “Never gonna get around to it”).  You can even set up separate priority folders next to a client- or task-based folder system so that messages can be archived in the correct location after action has been taken on them.

Depending on how you work, one of these options may intuitively make more sense than another, but don’t be afraid to experiment with your specific folder system as you go.  It can take time to understand how to manage email effectively, but if you’re diligent about sticking with your system and making improvements as needed, you’ll ultimately find that your organization will pay off in the long run.

Step #2 – Practice Making Email Decisions

Now that your email filing system is in place, it’s time to put email management rules into place!  According to most productivity and organization experts, the best way to avoid email overload is by making an immediate decision on how you’ll handle every email you receive.  That is, instead of glancing through your inbox every hour or so and opening up only the messages that look interesting, you set aside a chunk of time to determine what “next steps” should be taken on each message.

In the “Getting Things Done” world, this is called “processing time” and it plays a vital role in keeping you organized and productive:

“Processing is not doing, it’s deciding. The only “doing” time recommended during processing are those items that will take less than 2 minutes to complete.”

To set your own email processing rules, first think of all the different ways you could handle an email message:

• Deleting it, if the information isn’t relevant to you and your business
• Forwarding it, if the actions that must be taken from the message are best handled by another person
• Acting on immediately, if the resulting follow up will only take a few minutes
• Filing it, if the needed follow up will take a larger chunk of your time

With each of these possible outcomes in mind, set up a system that will allow you move through these email decisions quickly and efficiently.  For example, you could decide to only check your email once an hour, at which time, you’ll set aside ten full minutes for processing messages (you may need more or less time, depending on your usual email load).  If you choose to check your messages less frequently, you may want to make use of an autoresponder that tells senders what your email availability is and how to contact you if a response is needed sooner.

When the time roles around to check your messages, commit to going through every message you’ve received and taking the above actions immediately.  You may find it useful to set even more specific parameters to manage your inbox – for example, you may decide that actions that take fewer than one, two, five or even ten minutes will be completed immediately, while tasks requiring longer follow up will be filed away into one of the folders you created earlier in Step #1.

Step #3 – Make Use of External Email Tools

Once you have your incoming email messages under control, you can begin to add other external tools to your inbox processing method to take your email skills to the next level.  Check out any of the following options to make your email work for you (not the other way around!):

Advanced Email Spam Filters – Although most email programs come with default spam blocking installed, these tools often let messages slip through the cracks.  Advanced spam filtering programs, like GFI MailEssentials and Spam Bully, give you even more control over the messages you deem irrelevant and protect you from dangerous phishing or malicious content messages that threaten the security of your business.

In-Email CRM or Task Management Programs – If you work with a standard email platform like Microsoft Outlook or Google’s Gmail, there are a number of tools you can integrate into your inbox to make customer tracking and task creation even more efficient.  Many of these tools – YesWare and Rapportive, for example – integrate with existing CRM software programs and “to do” list managers to track information and centralize action items from within your inbox.

Email Template Creation – If you find yourself writing the same email messages over and over again, email template creator programs like TextExpander can help you to set up email templates and insert them, as needed, into messages with a simple script.  Even something as simple as using this program to set up automatic email signature insertion can save you time that’s better spent on the projects that will advance your business!

Of course, don’t go so crazy integrating these new tools that you no longer have time to maintain the email management rules you established in Step #2!  Add these tools only when you’re confident you can do so without compromising your business productivity and email inbox integrity.

Image: Keegan Jones