How to Keep Control of Your Inbox
Whether it’s working with
colleagues, setting up meetings or closing a deal, e-mail is the main
means of work-related communication.
According to a study by McKinsey, an average person
spends 28% of his work time reading
and responding to e-mails, and according to a 2011 study
by the Radicati Group, the typical
corporate e-mail user sends and receives about 105 e-mail
messages per day. For most
professionals, this is a huge distraction from actual work.
Many books, articles and blog posts
have been written on sending effective marketing e-mails.
There are a ton of strategies out
there on optimizing the subject line, day of week, time of day,
font and pretty much every other
imaginable detail.
But little attention has been paid
to the importance of being better at receiving and processing
e-mail
.
Below
are some tips to help you process e-mail more efficiently.
1. Don’t let e-mail control you.
The instant gratification of
clearing your inbox provides a brief feeling of accomplishment, but it’s
really not productive. Doing e-mail
is just one part of work. Determine how much time you want to
spend in your inbox on a given day
and don’t exceed it. When you first open your inbox in the
morning, star/flag e-mails that must
be dealt with today, but make sure to focus on your top
priorities first before diving into
your inbox.
Dedicate 30-minute blocks every two
hours to staying on top of e-mail. If you need more time,
make it 45-minute blocks, but it’s
critical to not let your inbox control you
.
2. Prioritize, prioritize,
prioritize.
Most e-mail clients give each e-mail
the same amount of real estate on the screen, making it hard
for our brains to discriminate. This
creates a tendency to give each e-mail the same amount of
attention up front. In reality, not
all e-mails arecreated equal. Some need to be read and
responded to right away (important
and urgent priorities). Some can wait until later (important but
not urgent priorities). Others
should be archived or deleted in bulk.
This means that some e-mails will
never be responded to, and that’s OK in the world of limited
time and resources. Start with your
top opportunities and make sure that you dedicate enough
time to them. Even if you don’t get
to the smaller stuff, you’ll feel great that you went after your
top leads and gave them your best.
3. Be decisive.
When checking your e-mail, decide
what to do with each e-mail immediately:
-
Respond if it’s absolutely necessary
or takes lessthan two minutes.
-
Delete it.
-
Archive it.
-
Defer it and respond later.
-
Develop a plan of action from the
e-mail.
By Dmitri Leonov | expert
contributor
Marketing News Exclusives 130207
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