CONTROLLING YOUR e-MAIL

Published: Sunday 11 April 2010

Here are some statistics for you to ponder:

1. By 2007 there were an estimated 225 million e-mail boxes in
2. Use by organizations worldwide. There are many more today.
3. A typical business user spends just over two hours using e-mail each day.
4. 53% of business users check e-mail at least 6 times a day.
5. 4% of business users check e-mail constantly throughout the day.
6. Business users spend 49 minutes per day managing e-mail accounts.

I'm sure these statistics continue to increase.

Where do you see yourself in these statistics?

Dealing with volumes of e-mail can be very time consuming, to say the least! A system that allows us to send and receive messages almost instantly can easily get out of hand.

The question I am going to address here is,

"What do I do with it all and how do I cut down the amount of time I spend processing incoming e-mail?"

Think of e-mail as no different than snail mail, except there is no piece of paper to physically pick up and process. However, e-mail can be managed the same way we manage snail mail.

When processing paper, as you know, there is a five-step action process. We'll use the same process on e-mail.

1. Delete as much as possible. This goes without say for junk mail and spam. Also, if you receive FYI's and are copied on messages of no interest to you, why keep them?
2. Ask others to take you off their distribution list when you find their correspondence is of little or no importance to you.
3. Forward all messages that are best handled by someone else as well as messages others will find of interest, or informational for their job responsibilities. No need to keep a copy.
4. Respond immediately to all the messages you can answer quickly.
5. Get them out of your inbox. Once your message is sent, it will go to your 'sent mail' area. This is your copy. You may also direct them to specific mailboxes you have set up.
6. Scan through your sent messages often and delete as many as you can. You will be the judge of how important they are to keep and for how long.
7. You may receive information that is vital to a project or task you are working on. Then the message is best sent to your electronic project file, or printed and kept in the file it pertains to.
8. Or, you may receive information you want to keep as resource material for possible future use. E-mail software allows you to generate folders and files for this purpose. Create files and transfer the messages you want to keep.
9. There are messages you need to respond to but cannot do so immediately. Maybe this is because you have to gather the information to respond. Or it could be that you cannot obtain the information for a few days, or even a few weeks. You could leave these messages in your inbox. However, then you will need to keep opening the messages again and again to remind yourself what they are about. And your inbox could become on overload. Also, some could get lost if you have a very high volume of incoming mail. You can transfer these messages to your electronic organizer if you use one. Or, to be sure these messages are handled in a timely manner, print hard copies and incorporate them into your paper follow-up system.
10. Even though your mail is coming electronically instead of as hard copies, there is no reason to treat it any differently.
11. You will be amazed at how much faster you can get through all those messages when you use these few simple steps and apply them every day.