Top tips for email management

Top 10 tips for email management

Disable notifications – Resist the urge to look at your inbox all the time and schedule times during the day to deal with emails. Consider using an automatic reply even when in the office indicating email is checked periodically. Disable notifications so you don’t get distracted when an email comes in – once we are distracted it can take up to 25-minutes to fully refocus.
Get an alarm clock – A recent study found we spend 20-25 hours a week monitoring our smartphones while outside the office. Don’t check or reply to emails outside your core working hours. You don’t have to reply to emails immediately. Don’t keep your phone by your bed – buy an alarm clock and leave it charging downstairs.
Manage your inbox – Keep only things to be dealt with in your inbox. Move everything else into relevant folders, or use categories or flags so that you can find them easily.
Sending prematurely – To prevent the stress of accidentally sending an email before it’s complete, don’t type the address into the ’To’ field until you are quite sure the email is ready to send.
Keep it relevant – Resist the urge to get poetic! Keep the subject line relevant, changing it where necessary as the conversation progresses, so that it is easy to find if you need to refer to it later.
Email policy – If your organisation doesn’t have an email policy then look into how you might develop one.
Delegate – Delegate responsibility – avoid getting copied in on all your team’s emails.
Out of office – Set an out of office at weekends and while you are on holiday and stick to it – if you are worried about an avalanche of emails when you get back you can ask for emails to be resent after a certain date.
Keep your cool – Never write anything in an email that you wouldn’t shout across a crowded room. Stop and think before sending an email—avoid the knee jerk reaction, especially when angry, stressed or busy. You might want to send it to yourself or save in draft. When you come back without that strong emotion you might rethink about sending it.
Turn off – Don’t confuse activity with achievement where email is concerned. Working with your inbox open is akin to having your office door open to the street, inviting interruptions at any point.