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eMail Time Management tips
By Aurelia Williams | April 5, 2008
Can you estimate how much time a day you spend just checking your email? Now tack on responding, sending new messages and filing things that come in and let’s not forget the endless deletion of Spam.
Be honest and please let us know about how much time you spend daily in front of your PC just for email purposes. Many people check their email on demand (meaning they just keep refreshing the email screen or open up an email and react to it as soon as their computer alerts them to the fact that they have a message).
Did you know that when you check your email non-stop and on demand it can interfere with whatever other tasks you need to accomplish. This is because usually people read the email, search for just the right way to reply, hit reply then sit and wait for something magical to happen (smile).
I usually suggest to people that they check their emails on a schedule (not a rigid one) but a schedule - a few times in the morning, afternoon and before quitting time should be just fine. If you are working on a project with others, you can even share your schedule with them or have them title the subject of the email in such a way that you can scan your inbox and go directly to where you are needed most. Also if you read a message and don’t have time to reply to it, be sure to mark that message unread or flag that particular message so that when you do have time to respond to the message you can clearly find it.
Make use of your folders in email system. Setting up folders and filing important messages in folders will save you time and a headache down the line when you are looking for that information later.
Special note: if you find yourself responding to different emails using the same response, create a response template and just simply cut and paste the response when needed instead of typing it over again. Of course you want to personalize the email but keep the *meat* of the email the same. You will save yourself a lot of time 
So, share with us and let us know how your email time management is going?
Personal Note – I’m just now getting to the point of “Letting Go” of a lot of my email duties. I have a Coaching Business, Podcast, and 3 other sites along with Managing affiliates and the amount of emails that I was trying to stay on top of was enough to make your head spin (smile). I am now training a VA to handle a lot of the email for me and I feel so much better.
Topics: Just General, WAHM Life, Work at Home Life |
April 5th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Switch off your email alerts - that’s one way to stop getting distracted every time a new email arrives and then chose the time to respond to them.
As you say checking only a couple of times a day is a better way to handle them.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
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April 5th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Great advice, Aurelia! I’ve been outsourcing my email for a very long while, but I can get a little too caught up in my personal accounts also.
April 5th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Great advice Aurelia. I too find myself checking my email way too much. Time to set my accounts on a schedule just as I have set my client’s emails on a schedule. Way to go letting go of some of those emails to a VA.
Tricia’s last blog post..A Great Place to Advertise Your Business
April 6th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
So true - reading and responding to e-mail is a huge distraction. Setting times in the day to review them is a great time management tip. I have about 7 different e-mails accounts (including 2 specifically for clients that I work with) so I check them first thing in the morning, then about mid-morning, right after lunch, mid-afternoon, end of business day/right before dinner, and then once last time before I shut down for the night. IM’s can be a distraction too; if I’m really busy I won’t even turn them on.
Donna’s last blog post..Bad Mommy
April 7th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Donna,
I have to agree, IM does distract me lol.
Tricia’s last blog post..Beautiful Inexpensive Wedding Favors
April 8th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Spending most of my day in front of a computer, I know exactly how email can take up too much of a day.
I work for Passpack, an online password manager and I recently wrote a blogpost on time management and email accounts:
http://passpack.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/check-passwords-off-the-to-do-list/
It could be helpful for those who sometimes have to check their email a thousand times a day.
Louise