Overwhelmed by Your Email Inbox?
When you read through your new emails in your inbox, do you respond right away? Or do you let the emails pile up before you start to feel behind and overwhelmed by what you need to reply to? It happens to the best of us. With a few email organizing tips from the Professional Organizer in NYC, you can tackle your inbox and respond to important emails in an efficient way.
Create canned responses. If you find yourself responding to emails frequently with the same response, it’s time to create a canned response. Rather than recreate the wheel every time someone asks the same question, you can fall back on already created responses. You can save them in your email drafts, in a Word document, or wherever is easiest for you to access.
Use concise subjects. When you receive an email with a clear and concise subject, you will have a sense of what your next step will be even before even opening the message. No time will be wasted trying to figure out what you need to do or how much time will be needed. It also makes it much easier to search for later!
Keep it short. It’s important to say what you mean and be direct when responding to email. Your time is valuable, and so is the time of the recipient! Don’t waste time with long drawn out responses. Yes, being thorough and detailed is important, especially when the confirming the specifics of a business agreement or purchase. But if an email doesn’t require a lot of detail, don’t add it! Keep it simple whenever possible.
If a quick response will do, then do it! Instead of reading your new emails and saving them in your inbox until you have time to respond, train yourself to process the emails that require very little response quickly. If you can respond to an email in under two minutes, do it immediately. Many emails just require a response that they have been received, or to verify that you understand the task and it will be handled. Respond quickly, add it to your task manager, and move on. Don’t let those emails clutter your inbox! If you don’t respond, you’ll find that the email senders may send MORE emails asking for you to confirm receipt. This just takes up more of your time!
Schedule time to respond to the bigger emails. Do you have an email that requires some research or a much more detailed response? Schedule that time into your day. You can send a brief email that you are working on the project so that you aren’t receiving more check-in emails concerning the status. Whether you clear out your inbox at the end of the day or the end of the week, make sure that every email that requires a response receives one.
The trick to efficient responses is being clear and to the point so that further clarification or more updates are not required. Getting into the habit of responding immediately when you can will save you from inbox overwhelm when you have many emails awaiting your attention. The Professional Organizer in NYC shares these email organizing tips so that you can be an effective communicator, increase your productivity, and avoid email overwhelm.