Managing Email

I am amazed at how poorly email is managed when it is such a critical part of most of our jobs. Like most of you, I receive hundreds of emails a day and need to be careful not to spend my entire day doing email and losing focus of where my time needs to be spent.

I won’t waste your time on all of the ineffective ways I have seen others manage email, but will focus on what I have been doing for over a decade that has worked great for me. I have yet to see anybody else doing anything similar to this method.

Having set times for doing email (first thing in the morning and later in the afternoon), taking action immediately on any emails that take two minutes or less, touching each email only once, and making sure your inbox stays under 100 emails (both read and unread) are great additional tips to put into practice.

How I manage my emails can be summed up by discussing three inboxes: Inbox, Sent Items, and Deleted Items.

Inbox: Emails in the Inbox folder should only be those items I am personally responsible for. If these items are Spam, I use Shift Delete so they are removed permanently. If these items have been taken care of, they are deleted. If these items are for someone else or I need to follow up on them, they are dragged to my Sent Items.

Sent Items: Emails in the Sent Items folder are items that others needs to take care of or I need to follow up to make sure they are done. If I send an email to someone that requires no follow up or further action on my part, this item is deleted from the Sent Items folder. Emails in the Sent Items folder should be reviewed on a weekly basis for follow up, deleting, and making sure nothing is getting forgotten.

Deleted Items: Emails in the Deleted Items folder are items that are taken care of and may be needed for future reference. At the end of each month, the oldest month of emails are dragged into their respective year folder – like 2007 or 2008. Usually, when you are looking for a past email, it is in the last couple of months, and if not, your email is still organized for searching.