How to stop letting your emails manage you

How to Stop Letting your Emails Manage You

I happen to be one of those odd people that enjoys checking my email every morning. However, I have clients that hate this task with a passion and do everything they can to avoid it. I think the majority of people feel the same way. The only problem is that when you are a business owner, and you avoid checking your email, your email is by no means gracious to you. A memo does not go out (unless you set one up) that asks people to stop bogging up your inbox. That might sound great, but the fact is that no matter how you feel about email, emails are simply part of the business world. So, instead of fighting them, I have found ways that allow email not to take over our lives.

Here are my top tips (although these tips can work for multiple email platforms, I am referring to systems I have set up in Gmail):

Stop checking your email all of the time

I am one of those people that are against having my email on my phone. Because I run my own business, I went against my rule and set it up but, I did this with restrictions. Instead of receiving a notification every single time I get an email, I have notifications go through my phone five times per day. If this freaks you out, rest easy because there are ways to flag emails from specific senders where you will be notified immediately. And, if you have extra time in your day, there is nothing stopping you from checking your email outside of these scheduled times.

If I am working at my computer, having my inbox open in a separate screen is like asking a child not to eat the cookie. It is way too tempting not to check my inbox when the little icon pops up on my screen. Instead, I set a reminder on my phone to view my desktop emails at specific times. 

Set up an autoresponder

If you are one of those people that receives 200+ emails a day, setting up an autoresponder may be a wise choice. Your autoresponder could simply inform your senders that due to the high volume of emails that you receive in a day, you are unable to respond to 100% of your emails. It still makes you look professional but takes the pressure off of responding to every single email that you receive.

Change your inbox to a priority inbox.

If you are a Gmail user, your inbox is automatically set up as a default inbox. Changing my inbox to a priority inbox and changing my inbox sections to Action Required, Information Only, Unread, and Everything Else changed the dynamics of my inbox.

These are just a few of the tips that work for many of my clients. Email management is a broad topic. At Lead Virtual Solutions, we are all about finding systems and processes that work best for you. If you need a one-time inbox makeover or daily email management, contact us today. We would love to discuss how we can help you with this. We are here to help you stop letting emails run your day.