Time management is essential in the modern workplace. Emails, more often than not, take up a significant amount of your workday. The dreaded inbox can be easily organized to increase productivity while decreasing how long you spend managing messages. Follow these tips to better organize your inbox.
Deleting Emails
The general rule of thumb is that if you haven’t opened an email in 30 days, then you should discard it – unless it’s something of importance that needs to be saved for future reference (i.e. a contract or statement of work).
What should be in your inbox?
Keep any message that you have not responded to yet. Most email providers allow you to “star” emails. This is an easy way to keep track of emails that require action in your inbox.
Unsubscribe from Newsletters
A recent study shows that 80 percent of social network members have received unsolicited email or invites. If you find that you are receiving too many emails from social networks like Linkedin or your favorite store, simply click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email to eliminate any future messages.
Create Filters
Migrate a mass amount of emails at one time to keep yourself organized. For example, you could create filters by year, quarter, or month. This ensures that your inbox is organized and not overflowing with old messages.
Clean out your Inbox
Set aside 10 minutes each Monday or Friday morning to go through your emails from the past week. Delete anything that is not high priority.Create a filter or star anything that has to be saved for your records. This will help you feel less overwhelmed.
Effective Time Management
Instead of checking your inbox with every message that comes in to your inbox, create your own schedule for checking emails. Try checking your e-mail once an hour. This will be a more productive use of your time because you will be viewing a mass amount of emails versus one. Multi-tasking, for example writing a blog and checking your emails, does not work effectively.
Use Declutter Applications
There are a variety of applications available to the consumer that can help you organize your e-mail subscriptions. Unroll.Me is good for those bogged down by email subscriptions and purchase confirmations. This system gathers all selected email subscriptions and transfer them into one daily email that be sent at a person’s preferred time.
A better-organized inbox will not only make you feel less overwhelmed, but will improve your productivity. We hope these tips have helped you conquered the fear of “the overflowing inbox phenomenon.”
What are some ways you organize your inbox? Let us know on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
