Manage E-Mail Effectively

This week's Tip:

Manage E-Mail effectively by making effective use of e-mail software feature and having good habits

Action items:

We are all faced with lot of e-mail. We spend significant amount of time reading e-mail everyday at work and home. The following are a few tips which I recommend. I am sure you have your own ways of managing e-mail, but see if you can pick a few tips from my experience or share your tips that I might find useful. 

1. Separate e-mail accounts for work and personal mails: I use different e-mail accounts for work and personal use. I rarely give my work e-mail account to friends, relatives. So whenever I am looking at work e-mail account, I don't get personal e-mails or newsletters or spam. It enables to me sort work e-mail faster.  

2. Sorting work e-mail based on priority: I have used Outlook features to sort my e-mail based on priority. All e-mails with my name in TO list becomes a top priority e-mail. I get a popup when such e-mail arrives. I respond to such e-mails immediately or at the earliest. I read all other e-mails in Medium Priority (with my name in CC list) and Low Priority (mails that don't match Top and Medium Priority filters) when I have some time. This makes me efficient in my work e-mail handling. I have been using this feature for 4 years now and I find it very useful. 

3. Use Outlook Express to download personal e-mails: For a long time I was checking the personal e-mails that arrive on Yahoo or Hotmail on the web. I realized it is very time consuming and started using Outlook Express to download e-mails. (Of course, yahoo disabled this free feature recently). I get more than 3 e-mail account mails to my Outlook Express and it makes convenient for me to read and respond. It saves me lot of clicks if I have to check e-mails on the web. Of course, configuring to Outlook Express can be done only if you have direct internet connection. 

4. Sort, Cleanup and Archive e-mails: I delete e-mails from time to time. I go through my e-mail folder and check if a mail will be required for future use or reference. If yes, I copy to my Archive Folders or else delete it immediately. I group the e-mails by month when I received or sent the e-mail. It is always easy for me locate e-mail from Archive Folder if I need one. 

5. Use only one primary account if you have multiple accounts: With free web based e-mail accounts we might have created multiple e-mail accounts. But use only one account as primary and stop using other accounts. Delete those accounts if possible. I have around 6 free web based e-mail accounts. But I primarily use only one to correspond frequently. All personal e-mail and newsletters I subscribe to come to only this account. 

6. Unsubscribe from newsletters or other mailing lists: While visiting some interesting websites we subscribe to the newsletter they offer. We keep getting their e-mails. After sometime we might loose interest in their topic or find the e-mails not up to our expectations. Don't hesitate to get off the mailing list. Ensure the e-mail that gets into your mailbox matches your current interests or adds to value to your work or personal life. I have done this frequently. 

7. Allocate time for personal e-mail: Always have some time allotted for going through personal e-mails and do it at a fixed time. You might choose time of your own choice. I use my lunch time to quickly sort through personal e-mails. OR if some reason I cannot spend time at lunch time, I spend some time before I leave office. 

8. Don't let your e-mail pile up: Don't let your e-mail pile up. Attend to your e-mail regularly. Having a large number of Unread mails will add stress to our mind. We might be worried there is something important buried in all those e-mails which needs our attention. 

Summary

Effective handling of e-mail has become an important skill that we need to possess. E-mail software have features that help us, put them to use effectively and develop your own discipline. 

Last week's tip:

Anticipate Stressful situations and be prepared for them

Reminder:

Do you know what kinds of stresses are likely to occur in next few years and or you prepared for them.

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