Keeping Emails Under Control

Email.
Electronic Mail.
For a lot of people this is the bane of their daily lives. The constant pinging from your phone or PC when a new message arrives in your inbox.
There are a multitude of email apps available; the most common of which is Gmail. There is also Outlook, Yahoo, Apple Mail, Airmail, Spark to name a few. These provide the ability to send and receive emails, as well as manage them. Some do this better than others.
PING:
You've got mail. A message has been delivered. This is from your favourite pizza outlet, telling you about another weekly 2 for 1 offer.
PING:
Another message, from an online retailer offering a discount if you purchase this week.


PING:
A message from your sister, who lives overseas, with photos of a recent family event
PING:
Another email, this time from your pension provider
PING PING PING

You get the message. Emails are coming at us from all corners, and without careful management we can get bogged down in looking through them; and in some cases, due to the volume, we might miss them altogether.


So, what can you do to make handling your emails easier?
Firstly - Decide what you want to do with it. Does it require an action from you? Do you need to do something?
If an action is required, put the email into a folder that's specifically for these type of messages. Alternatively, add it to a to-do list for future reference
Secondly - If no action is required, do you need to read it now?
Thirdly - Is it a marketing message? Unless you specifically want what's being marketed right now, delete it. Remove it straight away.

One of the biggest issues are the number of emails that are delivered from businesses we've had previous contact with, maybe only once, and gave them permission to send us marketing blurb.
If you don't want to receive them, it's easy to stop - click the 'Unsubscribe' link, usually at the bottom of the message. Firms have to delete you from their mailing list, and after a week or so, you'll stop getting the emails.

This is something I do on an annual basis (if not more often). I have a cull of the emails that are being sent to me. It's incredibly cathartic and all of a sudden the number of emails being delivered dramatically reduces.
Now, I only get emails from the places I want them from - which means I'm less likely to miss them.

Inbox Zero is a well-known phrase for keeping your default inbox empty. In other words, you've dealt with everything that's arrived.
Don't become a slave to your inbox.
Make it do the work for you.
Set up rules that will automatically place emails into specific folders; so that you don't need to think about each one.
Also, remember that you don't need to reply to every request straight away.

Think about the good old-fashioned postal service.
If a company had sent you a letter requesting information, they wouldn't expect a reply within minutes (or even hours). You'll receive the letter a minimum of one day after it was posted. You might not be in when the postman delivers it. So add another day before you actually read it.
You then need to consider your response; before posting it back - adding at least another day to the process.
All told, from sending a letter to receiving a reply could take no less than three days - oftentimes longer.
So why do you insist on responding to an email so quickly?
Slow down. Consider the response and then send it back.

It's important to remember that whilst emails are a convenience; unless you manage them, you'll find you spend more time dealing with them.

Finally - it's time to get to that empty, zero, inbox. Once you've triaged your emails into their various folders you'll be left with the ones you no longer need.
Delete them.
Now.
Straight away.
Don't think about it.
Highlight them and click 'Delete'.
Two things will happen.

1. Your inbox will have nothing in it. Yay!
2. The emails you deleted will be moved to the deleted items folder, and won't physically disappear for about 30 days. So, if you're hyper ventilating about what you've just done; fear not. You can still retrieve them!

Emails are here to stay, but we don't need to let them control us.

How do you manage your emails?  Let me know in the comments below.

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