5 Tricks to Manage Your Email
Swamped with emails? Trust me, we know the deal. Managing your email may seem like a project but it doesn’t have be an overwhelming one. Here are some helpful tips we use to manage our emails here at EPhost:
1) Don’t get caught in the cycle of constantly checking your email. Consider your schedule and determine the best time for you to sit down and have a date with your email. Scheduling a regular time to check your email allows you to relax. Knowing you don’t need to constantly check in with something eases your mind and allows you to focus on other tasks.
2) The easiest way for me to manage my email is to categorize my emails first. I create folders for everything. When creating a folder I scan through and see what I have the most frequently throughout my inbox. Create a new folder and start putting relevant emails in the “correct” folders. Your folders don’t have to be specific. Folder names can be changed at the end, sometimes the best way to word them is “priority” “regular” and “bunk” folders. This was you can ensure organization and what emails needing tending to first.
3) Using keyboard shortcuts will save you from monotonous work. My favorite keyboard shortcut (using a PC) is using Control + F (Command + F for a Mac). This enables the “find” option and helps you search through your email quickly. Searching for exact words with the Control + F trick is handy because it highlights the search for you, showing you every occurrence of those key words.
4) Group emails into conversations rather than having them displayed by the time received. Categorizing your emails by conversations will help keep a clean and easy to maneuver inbox. In Office Outlook you can enable this setting by clicking the “view” tab, and checking the box marked “show as conversation.” You can apply this setting to all folders or just specific ones. This setting will be very helpful when looking for data sent to you that may have been lost throughout the email thread of many repliers on one email.
5) Guide your emails, give them direction. It is ideal to send succinct replies but provide sufficient details for the recipient to act upon rather than replies that are vague. Avoid lengthy back and forth conversations by staying close to the point. Also, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone if it gets you faster results.
Giving yourself freedom from your email’s ball and chain will help you fully focus on other tasks. Categorizing your mail will save you from drowning in a sea of emails. Using keyboard shortcuts will save you valuable time along with grouping emails by conversations. Be sure to guide your emails in a concluding direction, and if things can be handled easier over the phone, don’t be afraid to reach out. We hope these five tips are as helpful to you as they are to us here at EPhost.