Tips for Email Management

Author: Akhil Shahani

Consider the following statistics:
• Every day 8 billion emails are exchanged on the Internet.

• The average business user spends at least 2 hours a day dealing with email.

No wonder that almost everyone who uses email as the primary mode of communication struggles to cope with the volume of mail that comes in everyday. How can you gain control over your inbox? How do you prioritize your emails? Is there such a thing as email management?

There are some simple “common-sense” steps that you can take to manage your. Read the following suggestions for successful email management.

• Always read and reply to the most recent messages in your inbox. Once a message arrives, read it and act upon it. There are three actions you could possibly take – deleting, responding or filing. Take the appropriate step immediately upon opening the mail. Do not postpone it to later. Procrastination is one of the main causes of email overload.

• Take care of non-urgent messages during a lean period in the day – say, just before lunch or before you leave work. Most of the incoming e-mail can be read once and then promptly deleted. Do an inbox clean-up at least once every month.

• Delete or file away the messages after you are done with them. Delete those messages on which you have taken action and are no longer needed. File away those messages that you have replied to but still need for future reference. Effective email management demands that you resist the temptation to retain all messages forever.

• Create email folders based on certain criteria. You could have folders for specific clients, projects or subject areas. Once you receive an email, move it to the appropriate folder; it will make retrieval easier for you. But don't go overboard and create too many folders within folders – delving through them will turn out to be a bigger headache.


• Create templates for routine replies. This will save you lots of time when making standard responses, such as a “thank you for your feedback” or when sending out product or corporate information.


• Automate tasks. If you always include contact information when you sign your emails, create a signature file and use that instead of typing it out each time.

• Use the preview pane that most email programs offer. Just a glance at the preview pane will usually let you know what the subject of the email is and you can decide your action based on that.

• Unsubscribe from group lists that send you communication which you do not read regularly. If there are groups that you would like to be a part of, but do not want their messages cluttering your inbox, change your receiving option to “digest” form – this way you will get all their messages only once a day.

• Take anti-spam measures. Use filters set up by your email client to avoid spam. Don’t waste time replying to or even reading junk mail – just delete them all.

• Invest some time in learning the features of your email program and then customize it to work the way you want it to. Most people, typically, use only 20-30% of a program’s capability.

• Above all, follow the dictum “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Refrain from sending and forwarding jokes and other useless information to others. In turn, you can request friends and co-workers to stop sending you stuff that you don’t need.

• Use different email addresses and prioritize what you receive. Sign up for a free email account on yahoo/google/hotmail that you can use for group lists, registration for download of software and utilities from the Internet, marketing promotions, chat rooms and message boards. Use your company email or a less publicized personal email id for communicating with business contacts, friends, relatives and associates.

While email is a great tool, its ease of use has made it susceptible to both misuse and overuse. That is why you need to follow strict email management practices to ensure you don’t get snowed under!

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