I don’t know about you, but I probably spend about 50% – 70% of my work day staring at Microsoft Outlook. I probably receive an average of about 500 emails per day – not including the hundreds that get caught by our spam filters. Of these, I need to read and/or take action on about 200 of them.
Communicating mostly through email has become the standard at our company and, as John Porcaro from the XBox marketing team at Microsoft writes, we’re not the only ones. Being in control of your email and effectively managing it has become a secret to success in high tech business (and likely many others).
In order to help us work more effectively, Macromedia recently offered a one-day course to all employees on how to get organized and stay organized in Outlook. The course was presented by McGhee Productivity Solutions and centered around a few basic principles:
1. Never leave an email in your inbox – always take action. This means you either respond to the email right away, archive it for reference only, or you turn it into an Outlook task and assign it to an “Action” category. Typical action categories are “NA – Email”, “NA – Read”, “NA – Computer” (NA stands for “Needs Action”).
2. Plan and prioritize effectively. Realize that you can’t commit to everything and make sure you schedule time during every day to accomplish your tasks. For example, I block two hours out of the day for reading and responding to email. I try my best not to allow others to schedule me for meeting during those time periods (though I’m not always successful in that).
Many of these tips plus a few more are nicely outlined in John Porcaro’s recent post – I suggest that you check it out if you face email overload like we do.
I haven’t had email overload since last summer… suddenly, the holidays somehow made it go out of control. That comment about act immediately, while unfortunate, is true. After awhile, your no longer responding to the same email, and a lot of times, it misses the point responding later.
I used to block off my Fridays as “email catch up” day. Last Friday didn’t work out so well.
Good ideas. I generally leave stuff in my inbox til I get around to it. OK, OK, I generally leave it there until it is so old it would be stupid to answer it anyway, and then file it. Well, somewhere in between.
As an interrim handling I’ve started flagging things as follow ups, and filing them immediately. I can still access the follow ups in the follow up folder. And sometimes it’s quicker to handle right then than to mark and file.
I think I keep up with my email pretty well… maybe I just spend too much time or I don’t have that much email.
I wonder how John Dowdell keeps up? I have one collegue who takes a good 3 weeks to reply to any email but they always reply. For my business with him, that turnaround is fine.
I do believe email (and being able to communicate in writing) is central to anyone’s success.
Thanks,
Phillip
I have a tablet pc that I use only as my organizer. The primary app I run on it is Quickbooks customer manager which allows me to track tasks on a per project basis as well as all the standard CRM functionality. The fact that it is mobile allows me take my tasks anywhere. The second app I run is Quickbooks Pro. This allows me to track all my time as well as expenses. I also use it to do invoicing etc. They are a good team if you are a freelancer. On another note if you travel a lot like me you should add neatreceipts.com to the line up.
I do get lots of email messages daily, and most of it is junk. To keep up with what is important and needs my attention I just have a bunch of filters and folders. The downside to blocking all that spam is that sometimes I miss legitimate communications from people that just used the “wrong” words, or forgot to put a message subject. So, I usually spend Saturday mornings catching up with the spam folders, finding out if I missed anything I shouldn’t. Problem comes when I am not able to do the clean up for a while, and then rescuing emails incorrectly trashed is just hopeless…
Here’s my advice: use Gmail. It groups conversations together so you’re not inundated with thousands of loose ends. And it’s got a really good spam filter too. Email me and I’ll invite you if you’ve not got one already (which I’m sure you must have!)
Josh, remind me to never send you an urgent email!
My emails have been controlling me too.
I prefer Outlook Express over Outlook. It is much easier.
Tips from The Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI) in the Philippines.. Robert Harland is a director of MBCCI and a freelance British journalist based in Bacolod. He can be contacted on +63 916 343 7048.E-mail:
If you run Oultook, NEO Pro is an add on that will save you at least 1hr a day in handling email – correspondent lists and helpful virtual folders automatically created. Try it free – http://www.emailorganizer.com
Thanks!
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! lbczlaqziztyh
I still think it is a two part solution to the problem.
First, you need to make sure all incoming emails are addressed within the day. Those that are not need to be filed in folders for the following days according to their degree of priority. This helps you managed the onslaught but it requires discipline and setting priorities. Your inbox needs to be clean at the end of the day. It’s psychological but it works.
Second, start educating people about how to write emails. Remember our society, unlike others is based on people making sense before they communicate and not dump everything on someone else’s lap.
This comment was posted automatically using Blog Comment Poster. Check out its site to learn more and start building backlinks to your websites today.