Email Issues
Monday, February 4, 2008, by Leigh Anne
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As my children like to affectionately tell me “Mom, you have issues.” I do admit to one “issue” - email management. A few weeks ago I shared with you my quest to get control of my office desk in “Declutter Your Desk”. Well, with a homebased business we actually have two desks - our actual, physical desk and then the desk that exists on our computer, more specifically our email inbox. Because of the electronic world we live in my physical, paper inbox has become much smaller but my virtual, electronic inbox has gotten out of control!
On average I receive about 75-100 emails a day. Left unattended this can very quickly get out of control. This morning I had over 250 emails in my inbox - some of which have been there a long time - that is just too many! Your inbox should not be a storage system or a “to do” list. We would never consider leaving our actual physical mail in the mailbox until we had time to deal with it
My goal for the week - “Declutter My Inbox!” I use the same process to declutter my inbox as I do for my physical, paper inbox - File it, Refer it, Take action or Delete it.
File it
I have set up folders in my email program just like I have in my filing cabinet. These folders are for information that I want to be able to reference in the future. I have 19 main folders which represent all the different roles, jobs, organizations, projects etc. that I am involved including one for my homebased business (which has 23 subfolders in it.) I have a folder for the various organizations I am involved in (American Mothers, DSWA, various other online courses I am taking, family, church responsibilities, travel info, beach house business, blog ideas, and a reference file for misc. info I may need to access later)
The sub folders for my business include: Challenges (team and customer challenges/contests), Contact and Referrals, Creative Ideas, Home Events, Leadership Development, Motivational, New Consultant Training, Organizational Tips, Product Ideas, Profitability, Recruiting, Sales Tips, Scheduling, Team Meeting Ideas, Webinars. These are all topics that I work with on a daily basis in my business.
I also have individual folders for pending/upcoming events, such as conventions, large customer events etc. If you find you have a piece of email that you don’t know what to do with - you probably need to create a folder. But don’t get in the habit of keeping things just to keep them!
A regular clean up of these folders is necessary too -if you haven’t needed or accessed the information in the last 6-12 months - do you really need it???
Refer It
As soon as I receive an email that I need to forward to someone else I do it -immediately! Then delete your copy unless it needs further action on your part later. (see next step)
Take Action
I have two categories for Action items - anything that takes 2 minutes or less to deal with I do immediately. If it will take longer than 2 minutes I put it into my Action Folder. The important thing here is to be sure and schedule time daily to deal with these action items - don’t just stick them in a folder and forget them - it’s like forgetting to look at your To Do list each day!
Delete It
I love the feeling of power and completion that comes with hitting that delete button! Be sure and have your email program settings such that it automatically empties your deleted mail. My deleted mail had thousands of emails in it before I figured out how to do this!!
So this morning I had over 250 emails in my inbox and right now, after about 30 minutes of work I am down to 46 - my goal by the end of the day is ZERO! Think I can do it?
So how many emails do you have in your inbox? Leave a comment below and let me know!
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Related Posts:
- Declutter your Desk
- Happy Mail
- Finding Focus - Part One, Now what was I doing?
- Smart Book
- Regaining Momentum
Categories: Direct Sales, Home Based Business, Organizational Tips
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Robyn » Monday, February 4, 2008, 9:59 pm