I hear people complaining about email overload all the time.
I totally sympathise.
On average I get about 120 emails a day. That’s over 800 messages a week. And that’s just inbound communication. I dread to think how many interactions I have through replying, forwarding etc etc.
It can be bloody overwhelming to switch on your phone, laptop or tablet and see the number of unread messages you have going up and up and up….
So how do I deal with it?
Let’s look at the bigger picture. The first thing you need to do is accept that it’s not really about the emails. It’s just a symptom of a larger issue – that of not having a clear process to manage your emails and also not having the time management skills to prioritise and plan.
You also need to be brave and turn off the endless incoming traffic – or at least control it. There are really obvious steps to take that so many people just don’t do – like unsubscribing to newsletters or turning off social media notifications. But you should also look at how many email chains you are being included in. If it’s doing your head in to get several ‘just keeping you in the loop’ emails everyday, then you need to educate your team or clients to only update you when they need to.
You can also control how much is piling in to your inbox by looking at how many messages you are sending out. One word replies to emails drive me insane. Was it really of any value to send me an email saying ‘Thanks!’?? Did you really need to hit ‘Reply to All’??
For most of the us, the same device we are reading or sending email on has this amazing facility to actually talk to people. Recognise where you can slim down your email traffic by handing stuff on the phone or face to face, particularly when it’s complex stuff.
When you finally clear down your inbox, your email traffic will go down. Taking the time to sort out a system can save you twice the time in the future.
First steps to taking control of the email flow is to clear out your inbox & keep it clean.
Be ruthless.
And once you’ve got to the magical state of zero emails (or at least close to it), you’re ready to start.
I have a system.
And I stick to it.
And here it is:
1. I delete
2. I respond
3. I file
I only review email a few times a day, and I use great Outlook tools to manage my data – if you need help with this, then I can help you with that.
Simple. But effective.