How to Use your Email Program to Save Time

Your email program can either hinder or improve your productivity and efficiency. By following a few simple rules you will be able to use your email program for effective time management and avoid the pitfalls which lead to email being a distraction and hindering productivity.

Set up Folders in your Email Program

The first step in saving time with your email program is to set up folders for different categories of work or private emails. Folders can be organized according to who the mail comes from, what area it deals with, or status of project (e.g. current projects, next actions, archived projects). This is the basic element to good time management with an email program. By separating your emails into various categories you will be able to deal with similar emails at the same time, easily find email and set rules for dealing with emails in a specific category.

Set up Message Rules to Handle Mail

In order to save time set up message rules to handle mail. Message rules can send emails to different folders as they come in instead of doing it manually, mark emails as read if you do not need to read them, or perform a number of other actions to save you time when dealing with your email.

Use a Good Spam Filter with your Email Program

Unfortunately many people are inundated with spam daily and this can waste a lot of time if you manually go through deleting each spam message and blocking it. Instead of going through this time consuming task get a good spam filter to catch most spam messages. Also set a white list and try to use as high a spam filter setting on your email program as you feel comfortable with. By setting a white list you ensure that you get all the emails you want to while more effectively cutting out spam and the time spent deleting it.

Turn Off Instant Notifications of Emails

Instant notifications and alerts of emails can be the biggest distraction and least effective time management habit when dealing with emails. Effective time management requires being able to focus on tasks but instant notifications distract you and lose your focus on the task you are trying to complete. Turn off instant notifications of emails and rather set aside a time each day when you will specifically work on responding to emails.

Save Time with your Email Program by Encouraging People to Use Subject Lines

A good way to save time with your email program is to encourage people to make better use of the subject line. Unless you are a sales person trying to sell something with your email many people do not give much consideration to the subject line of their email, ask people to give this more thought so that before you even open an email you know what it is about and roughly how much time it is going to take and when you should read it.

Managing your Email Time Effectively

When you block off time to spend on email it is also important to manage this time effectively. Decide how much time you are going to spend on your email and set a timer to tell you when that time is up. As you go through your email folders start with the most important emails and decide what to do with each email – do you need to deal with it later, can you deal with it now or do you need to delete it or file it? If an email only takes a few minutes to deal with then do it immediately, if it requires longer to deal with then decide what project it relates to and deal with it during time you have allocated to that project. Try to keep your email folders as clear as possible so they are easy to go through, if necessary create extra folders, but try to delete whatever you don’t need.

In conclusion, today proper email management is a vital part of effective time management. In order to save time with your email program you can turn off instant notifications, set aside time each day to deal with emails, use a good spam filter to catch as much spam as possible, set up folders in your email program and use message rules to deal with messages. Ask people to utilize subject lines to give you an idea of what the email contains and then manage your email time effectively.