How to triage your emails
FEBRUARY 23, 2018
Email is the communication king. Quick, easy and free, it’s the chosen method of communication for many business owners. They offer us the flexibility of working hours, allowing us to work on the move and can reduce your stress, and increase our efficiency exponentially.
Email programmes have got pretty savvy and many sort your emails for you – automatically sorting junk, social media and promotions and putting them in their relevant folders. But that still doesn’t mean that everything that goes into your main folder is important and requires your immediate attention. It’s all too easy to spend all day sorting, replying to and sending emails and before you know it, you’ve achieved very little actual work.
I used to get anxious if my inbox was more than the page I could see, so my PA would move them into different folders. (some days I would get up to 400 emails). I have a friend who has over 2000 unread emails – as a self confessed control freak this sends me into a cold sweat! Sometimes I even used to move them myself into different folders called “do later” or “read today.” I even tried the justification – ok so if it was a CYA email (cover your arse) then I’m not reading it, and set a inbox rule to delete all CYA emails. Sometimes in a moment of panic I would delete them all – and see who chased me for a response – I do not advise this one! So, instead of listening to my ridiculous excuses for not having to deal with my emails, how can you learn from my mistakes and save yourselves… Here’s my 4 very simple steps.
Urgency
Very few emails require an immediate response. If an issue is urgent, it is likely that the sender would also follow up with a call to ensure you had received their email and can respond in a timely fashion. The majority of senders understand that you won’t be sat on your emails all day and will expect to wait up to a day for a reply.
Prioritise
What really requires immediate action? Can something wait an hour or two? Use settings within your email account such as ‘mark as important’ and ‘flag’ to remind yourself to come back to an email later should you not have the time for it now. Alternatively, if a sneaky promotional email has leaked its way into your primary folder, just delete it. I guarantee you really won’t want the latest this season must have dress from a high stress store. It’s just clogging up your space and will be another email you have to skim past when trying to find one in particular later that day.
Management
There is no point sorting your email system if you still spend your day trawling through them all. It’s the same with social media; you should set times throughout your day that you check both, leaving you free to work on important activities for the bulk of the day. A system that works well for me is to check emails and social media first thing, then again at lunchtime and towards the end of the afternoon and once again before bed. This is a system that fits in with lots of meetings and the writing up of clients notes but allows for maximum productivity and the efficient smooth running of a profitable business.
Outsource
If you’re really struggling, do as I always say. Do what you do best and outsource the rest! There are many virtual assistants who help with email management. They’ll spend time sorting through them, categorising based on level of urgency and importance and responding where applicable. Enabling them to do this task will free up even more of your time, allowing you to focus on the areas of the business that make you money.
As with so many things, it all comes to discipline and self-management. You need to ensure you have a system in place that works best for you and that you can adapt when required to suit you and your business. Emails are an incredible tool. Just don’t let them overrule the running of your business!