get control of your email
Youve got mail used to be beautiful words to computer users. Someones thinking of me! Not so for most of you today. Do you regularly tell your friends how many emails you receive daily? Do you put off reading some because of the subject line or the sender?
Email has exploded in a way few people could have predicted. It is now one of the many causes of stress in the workplace. Develop some systems to deal with your email. Try some of these:
1. If you have administrative support, allow them access to your email and let them do a first purge for you. Spam filters dont get everything. Train your assistant to recognize the important stuff and to delete or summarize the rest for you to peruse at a time convenient to you.
2. Only review your email at regular intervals during the day. Do not disrupt the flow of your work to address whatever pops up.
3. Alert your coworkers and frequent email senders to your schedule so that they will not hound you for your reply.
4. Make use of your out-of-office messaging if possible when you go out of the office for more than one day. This helps senders change their expectations for a reply.
5. While you are gone on vacation, only check your email during 1 or 2 days of your trip. Your brain needs the rest and your family will appreciate having you more mentally with them.
6. If your emails are really backlogged, take a quiet evening and sort through them. Create action folders and holding folders for messages so that you will not be faced with them and 100 more like them every time you open your email.
Finally, the old adage that holds true for paper holds true electronically. Try to handle all correspondence only once. Everything has a place either in a manila or electronic folder.
So, what are you going to do with this email?
Tracy
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Tracy Knofla
High Impact Training
PS. Feel free to share this with your friends and colleagues