Love Your In-box

How to manage your email messages

Since the invention of email life has got so much easier – hasn’t it?

For some the in-box has become a bottomless abyss, a terrible mixture of junk, monthly publications, notifications, and the occasional one that’s actually important and needs action. You get more depressed with each ‘ping’.

Does looking at your in-box fill you with dread? Too many un-read? Genuine ones mixed with invites to webinars? The ones that need action now alongside those that can wait a while?

Realising you’ve forgotten to do something because the email related wasn’t flagged? It’s a nightmare. Sanity is at hand (sort of!).

Imagine your in-box wasn’t electronic, what if all that mail was real and coming through your door, day after day – would you treat it the same way you do your emails...? No, thought not. So why not apply some of the same discipline to your electronic mail as you subconsciously do your snail mail? It’s easier than it sounds.

First of all, do you constantly check your letter box at home? No, because mail only arrives once a day (I remember the old days of first and second post – but two daily deliveries are long gone). Now I admit this is the big difference between snail mail and email – email is constant – your electronic mail-box is open 24 hours a day, and with automation it’s easy to mass mail without spending a fortune on stamps! So strictly speaking it probably isn’t viable to only check your in-box once a day. However, being strict with yourself and not checking each email as it arrives is good practice.

Turn off notifications – get rid of those ‘pings’ and pop-ups telling you some new missive has landed – remove the temptation. It should be enough to check your in-box twice a day, four at most (if anything is really that urgent people shouldn’t just be relying on email – they’ll give you a call). If this makes you a little uncomfortable you could always set up an automatic response letting the sender know that you only look at your mail at 11am and 3pm daily. 

Setting up ‘mail check’ slots in your diary will help you get into good habits, and don’t panic if you miss a slot – it’s not the end of the world - honest.

When you do one of your scheduled checks treat each email as you would if it had landed on your doormat in an envelope.

1) Let’s start with the bit we all love the most – junk. If unsolicited mail comes through your door what do you usually do? Scan the envelope to see if you can tell who it’s from – certain items will go straight into the recycling without even being opened – same goes for email – but also, if it isn’t spam, you need to unsubscribe.

2) After the quick scan and dump – there may be some ‘junk’ mail you might want to check, just in case it’s relevant/beneficial - that’s fine, but it’s unlikely to be urgent, or important – if it were real mail it might be a post card from aunty Mabel who’s on safari in Africa somewhere - tempting though it is to read it now - you should put it on the shelf to read later – do the same with the emails that fit this category - put it aside for if and when you have the time, a separate folder for these items is a good idea so they don’t distract from the stuff that needs action, you could even call it ‘the shelf’. You can check this folder weekly - if something’s been there a week and you haven’t had the need/time to read it you can probably bin it - but if not this is your chance to give it a closer look.

3) Publications you’ve subscribed to will send regular emails - do you really read them? Don’t be afraid to unsubscribe. If they are useful, and you do actually read them, then put them ‘on the shelf’ for later, read them when you have time to properly absorb the articles you are interested in. They can quite easily be kept with the stuff in item 2) above.

4) Invitations - to webinars/events/promotions etc. as with 2) and 3) they are unlikely to be urgent, in most cases they can wait a few days, so onto the shelf with these as well.

So far we’ve moved stuff out of the in-box and either into the bin or onto the shelf for reading later.

Now for the important stuff - the stuff you need to think a bit more about, the stuff that will need you to take some action. Time management skills come into reviewing this sort of mail, it’s not just a case of identifying that these emails need action - but by when, and how long you need to action them.

5) The first time you have a good sort out you may come across some ‘red bills’ important emails that have been languishing in your in-box so that they are now urgent as well as important. No getting around it these need immediate attention. If you don’t have the time to do them all as required contact the sender/talk to your boss – find out which has priority? how much effort is really needed? can some/all of it be delegated? This could be a painful period of catch up - but it’s worth it.

What you also need to do is set up some sort of ‘done’ folder. When the email is dealt with move it here - away from your in-box. It’s not a delete or trash folder - you’re going to keep everything in here, but it’s been dealt with - you don’t need to worry about it anymore. Work through your red bills and when each one is complete move it to the ‘done’ folder.

6) After the shock of the red bills it becomes easier - and if you manage to keep you new ways of working you shouldn’t have a shock like that again. So now you can work your way through your remaining ‘post’.

There may be some more bills, but now you can plan when to deal with them. Diarise any work that’s needed and reference the date/time of the email related to the task. You can then move the email to your ‘done’ folder. You haven’t actually done the work, but you’ve set aside time to work on it, within the specified deadlines, so you don’t need to worry about it anymore. If you need to get someone else to do something forward the email to them - if you need a response from them make a note somewhere to remind yourself in good time to chase them if necessary - that too can now move to the ‘done’ folder. Carry on like this and your in-box will eventually be empty (when was the last time that happened?)

As with many things in life getting started is difficult, once done it’s easy to maintain - but you need to make it a habit, or before you know it the mat is covered in mail, and you can’t get out the door. Schedule a bit of time each day to review your in-box and clear each item to its proper home, the bin, the shelf or the done folder. At the end of the day is a great time because then you can turn off your computer knowing your in-box is empty - it’s a wonderful feeling - there isn’t anything at that point that you aren’t aware of, and anything that needs action is under control. Sure something may drop in overnight, but at the time you turn off there is nothing on the doormat - and there are definitely no ‘red bills’.

Your in-box doesn’t look so frightening any more!!