Since you are reading this time management blog you might have a large backlog of emails, tasks and a desk full of documents for filing. If this is a case you need to attack this problem from two sides. You need to clear the backlog and you also have to implement new working methods so that no new backlog can build up. Because it is difficult to handle both at the same time, I recommend a sequential approach:

1) Park your backlog

Your backlog probably accumulated for some time. Remove the urgent tasks and place the backlog of documents inside a sideboard for example.  If you are dealing with an e-mail backlog you create a folder called “backlog” and move your entire inbox there. The urgent emails shall remain in your inbox. You now created the mental freedom required to focus on the improvement of the processing of your inbox. 

2) Improve your daily task management

 If a backlog could accumulate you probably have a problem in processing the flow of incoming emails, postal mail and tasks. I recommend to apply the following step by step:

3) Reduce your backlog

Now that your inflow is under control it is time to get rid of yoru backlog.  I recommend to plan a few hours for this in your calendar and to process the backlog in one or very few batches. The benefit compared to the batch process is that you feel great and motivated afterwards. Going step by step might feel as if there was no progress and you might even lose motivation.

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Reduce your email accounts to three or less.

1) Business email account

You need one account for business related emails - if you are a salaried employee this is typically is your company’s email address. 

2) Private email account

You then also need a private email account. I highly recommend separating business and private email accounts. On one hand corporate compliance guidelines often request this separation. On the other hand it also helps keeping a line between your private and business life. Whereas you want to work on your business mails as efficiently as possible you might want to treat your private mails differently.

3) Website email account

In case you have a website it also makes sense to have a separate email for this one since you can expect a high amount of incoming spam which you do not want to get distracted from in your business and private account.

4) Additional addresses

If you need more email addresses than the three mentioned above you better create email aliases. The advantage is that you have to maintain less address books and also reduce the number of inboxes to be checked.  

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Dec

02

You probably write the same messages or very similar messages over and over again on a daily or weekly basis. Try setting up some basic email templates for your most common messages. You can always adapt them as needed to personalize the message or to make it more relevant to the specific situation.

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Procter & Gamble became famous for its one page memo policy forcing employees to think about what they wanted to say and to focus. This is even more necessary for email considering the time necessary to process their quantity on the inbox as well as the small size of the screens of computers and mobile devices. You can keep you emails short by using a standardized structure:

1)     Greeting

Start with a short greeting eventually referring to the last meeting or the subject to the mail. It also is useful to explain the purpose of the mail, such as giving and information or requiring an action or answering to a request. This section should not be longer than 2 lines.

2)     Body

This section includes the core information of your mail.

  • Use bullet points for each item
  • Use headers with number if your mail covers more than one subject
  • Keep sentences short. If a sentence becomes longer than 2 lines, split it in two sentences or more.

3)     Closing

This area describes the next steps with regards to the matter of the mail as well as a short greeting. The closing also always should include the email signature.

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I recently found a very interesting plug in for MS Outlook, which is called Xobni (backwards for inbox). It adds column to your outlook on the right side where it summarizes all information on a contact you have, displaying contact details (even if the person is not in your address-book), conversations, shared attachments, social network memberships. The key benefits are that you have all contact information including statistics at your finger tips and that it reduces the time you spend searching for phone numbers or attachments. The tool is free and xobni plans to launch an extended version which will be billable.

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Did you know that for each five emails send you will receive three in return and that this increases with the number people on the distribution list? This means that you are not the victim of your email inbox but largely influencing the incoming email volume.

Before sending an email ask yourself the following questions:

  • Does this email trigger an action?
  • Is the information important to the receiver (especially for FYI mails)?
  • Does it add any value (e.g. thank you mails)?
  • Are you comfortable knowing that this mail might be archived forever or forwarded to your boss?
  • Do all people listed in the distribution list really need this mail (especially those on cc)?

To better understand your current email behavior and the reduction potential go into your “sent” folder and screen your emails based on the above questions. Then think about the time it took you to write the mails and the receivers to read these mails and the possible chain of other actions behind, costing your company a lot of time and money.

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Newsletter are a nice thing but in the end they fill your email inbox and distract you from concentrating on what you need to do. Use RSS or Atom Feeds instead of subscribing newsletter. You can collect the feeds and flip through them from time to time and just pick the ones with interesting items.

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Sep

16

Most of us are checking their email more or less permanently. By switching to your email inbox all the time permanently interrupt your other work. You become highly inefficient in processing your email as well as in your other work. I once heard a manager say “you work or you email”. This of course it not an option and we have to learn to take most benefit from email by using it effectively.

The underlying problem for this is our perception of communication via email. Face to face meetings, instant messaging or phone calls can be categorized as synchronous communication. All participants in the communication are present at the same time physically or remotely. 

In contrast to this asynchronous communication does not require all involved parties to be present at the same time. This is obvious for postal mail but also applies to discussion boards and email. 

The problem is that many people perceive email as a synchronous communication tool and therefore believe that emails need to be answered instantly. I once even met someone from a Korean consulting company where an internal rule stipulated that emails had to be answered within 15 minutes unless you are in a meeting.

Once you understand that email is asynchronous communication you can radically change the way you are dealing with your email inbox. It might sound uncool but the following habits with regards to email will significantly boost you productivity:

  • Define a fixed time during which you will go through your emails. Ideally you set it at the same time every day. (e.g. 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon or evening). 
  • Inform people around you when you deal with emails and that they should give you a phone call when something is urgent and requires immediate action.
  • When you work through your emails you start with the one in the top and work yourself to the bottom in SEQUENTIAL order. If you do cherry picking and open those mails first you are most interested in, you will have to deal with those you don’t like at the end which increases the risk of procrastination.
  • Take an action on each email once you opened it. Think about how much time you are wasting when you open and close mails dozens of times over a week or longer without taking action. If you are not sure immediately rather keep the mail open and take the time to think about it thoroughly. In the end it will save you time and you feel much better after you solved the problem on what to do with this mail.
  • If you have difficulties in really focusing on one thing only during that time you can use an egg-timer or sand-clock. It is a strong symbol and it will help you to stick to your plan. This also works for other areas too of course.
  • When you are on the road and using your mobile phone or blackberry  these tips do not apply. Here you are using time which otherwise would be idle. You will not have to deal with those things you cleared on the road during your email hour.

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We all regularly send emails to a defined receivers. You can save a few minutes each time by establishing distribution lists in your email application. Whereas the feature of using having distribution lists is not new, there is still a lot of potential to improve the way we maintain these lists to get most out of them:

1) Naming convention:

If you always give them just any name without any further consideration things might get complicated in case you have to manage many distribution lists. I therefore suggest creating a simple naming convention to make life easier.

  • Let the names start with a marker for a distribution list. If the names always start with e.g. “DL-xxx” you will find them all at the same place in your addressbook. It will also make the selection faster when you directly key into the receiver field since the autofill function will offer all distribution lists after you entered “DL-”.
  • Keep the names as short as possible
  • If the receivers are related to a regular meeting use the meeting’s name abreviation (e.g. MM for management meeting)

2) Updates:

One of the more difficult things is to maintain distribution lists. ALtough I have not found the perfect method yet, applying a few simple actions from time to time can help keeping the list accurate.

  • Whenever you receive the information on a change in organization immediatly update your distribution list. If you put it aside to make it later chances are high to forget it.
  • Reduce the number of distribution lists. Although I just encouraged you to use them, don’t overdue it. If you need to manage too many of them they will not be accurate anymore and quickly loose the benefit.
  • Offer an “opt-out” option, so that the recipients can easily request that they be omitted from the list. You can do this by creating a special email template already including the question and offering a link or a button to inform you about this. This mainly applies to large list, where might not know everyone anymore.
  • If you work with large lists of external people I highly recommend to use an external mailing provider. It will add a lot functionality to subscribe or unsubscribe and you can focus on the contents. You will also keep these vague contacts out of address book making it lean and relevant for your daily business.

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Don’t use the automatic read confirmation function in your email application. Considering the number of mails you are sending every day, it results in many confirmation mails received. Even deleting one only takes seconds, you should consider how much time it will take you to delete thousand of confirmation over a year.

As a receiver of mails with confirmations you get asked by your mail application if you agree that the confirmation is returned to the sender. Depending on your preference as well as the functionality of your email application I suggest to disable confirmations or to allow them without asking.

Of course in some cases or some professions this might be a very important function. But it is better used selectively when necessary and not as an automatic function for all mails.

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