Manage Your Email Before It Manages You!

By Barbara Murphy

Have you considered this? Anything that has proven to be useful may not remain useful for long, unless it is constantly maintained. This tends to be surprisingly true every time we use email. The birth of electronic mail or “email” has undoubtedly changed how we do business today. It has not only altered the quality of our communication, but it has also enabled work to be faster, more reliable and cost-efficient. But there is a dark side. Improper email management is at the same time a contributing factor to the low-productivity and high-stress rate among many professionals.

Apply effective email management strategies to help you manage your email before it starts managing you. Perhaps the worst-case scenario is to be trapped in your inbox spending more than half of your working hours reading unnecessary email and worse still, spam messages. That’s certainly not what we want to achieve.

Statistics show that most people will check their email an average of 50 times a day – that adds up to a lot of wasted time. If you believe as I do, that time is more valuable than money; we should start looking for answers before we lose any more time. Email management teaches professionals how to maximize email technology while leveraging it as a tool for effective communication and productivity at work. Since this technology was originally and intentionally created to assist us in our day-to-day life, whether at work, at home or in school, it makes sense to use it responsibly and equip ourselves properly with the right knowledge and skills.

Organizing your email by setting up an email reference system is one of the most effective ways to manage your inbox. You can start by placing labels in your folders with the corresponding tag name. This will not only organize your email but it will also help you check which are important and which are not. Fortunately, most email services nowadays such as Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail offer various controls and options to help its users manage their inbox better.

Another useful way of managing your email is by managing yourself. This means that you would benefit by scheduling your time accordingly – consciously choosing the time for checking email. Consider reading them in the evening or in the late afternoon. Most experts highly discourage people from checking their email first thing in the morning since this will heighten the chances of spending wasteful time buried in your inbox. Research has found that people who are in the habit of reading emails in the morning are more prone to stress and struggle more with lack of productivity. So, before your email manages you, start managing it proactively now!

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