Manage Your Email Onslaught

By: David Schuchman
      Princeton Technology Advisors, LLC
      Innovative Solutions for Your Growing Business

The volume of email we receive is one of the biggest productivity challenges that managers and their staff face. Sorting through the daily deluge can consume an incredible amount of valuable time that is much better spent elsewhere. The good news is that this is a solvable problem once you learn how to efficiently and effectively manage your everyday email communications.

Don’t Constantly Check For Email

Just like planning other important work activities during your day, schedule daily time for email. Depending on your typical email activity, plan to look at your email only at a specific time each day. For example, 30 minutes before lunch and 30 minutes before you end your work day. As an alternative for high volume email recipients, only check your email at specific time intervals, such as every two hours.

Read Only the Subject Matter

Learn to quickly discard irrelevant or unimportant messages right away by reading the subject matter and the sender’s name. You will likely purge more than half of incoming messages this way. Then, you can more efficiently attend to the important email messages.

Practice “OHIO”

Only Handle It Once. Immediately decide what to do with each email message. Answer the important ones quickly instead of filing them away. If you don’t, and you later are ready to answer them, you’ll spend a lot of time searching through folders to find the needed message.

Create Topical Folders

For messages that you must keep for a period of time, store them in a folder that is not your “Inbox” or “Sent Mail” folders. Name the folder based on your need, such as by customer name or product name. Once you conclude the nature of that business, delete those messages, and even the folder.

Email Trivia: "Crackberry" is a term used to describe the excessive use of checking email on a SmartPhone (initially on a Blackberry device) by its owners, and is a reference to the unfortunate addictive nature of crack cocaine. Use of the term "Crackberry" became so widespread that in 2006 Webster's New World College Dictionary named "Crackberry" the "New Word of the Year."

A Wonderful Reference: "NetiquetteIQ: A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email", by Paul Babicki.