Email Management Tips for the Office

One of the greatest time consuming tasks in the workplace is checking email. It’s a necessity in today’s busy world, and emails are coming and going all hours of the day and night. I bet if you were to check your email inbox right now you’d have quite a few emails sitting and waiting for you to take action! With email becoming a main source of communication between coworkers, colleagues, and clients (and that’s not even talking about your personal correspondence!), it’s no wonder we are constantly playing catch up. If you’ve ever started your morning off feeling anxious and overwhelmed with the amount of emails needing your attention, then this Professional Organizer in NYC urges you to check out these email management tips for the office.

First, let’s talk about creating an email organization system. This is a necessity so that you can keep your inbox clutter free, take care of important emails and tasks that need your response, and not miss deadlines in a sea of unread emails. The first step to creating an email organization system is to create a filing system. Much like a paper filing system in your home or office, you can create an email filing system to store read emails that need to be saved. You can create categories for these files in a number of ways, either matching your paper filing system or by year or calendar quarter. The key here is creating labels and categories that you easily recognize and make sense. This means you’ll know exactly where an email is stored and will be easily able to locate it if needed. It also helps when you are processing incoming emails, as you can easily file away emails that don’t require action. For more tips on creating an email organization system, click here.

Next, let’s focus on NOT using your inbox as a to-do list! Because so much of the communication in your office is most likely done through email, it’s no wonder that many tasks are shared and assigned via email. But because of how quickly emails are sent your way, those tasks can easily get lost in the shuffle. The key here is creating a system that works for you that will pull those tasks out of your email and into a functioning system. One way to do this is to use task management system. There are many options! Outside of the common methods such as using a paper planner or utilizing an online calendar like Outlook or Google, there are a myriad of project management programs that can help you to organize your tasks, such as Asana, Trello, or ToDoist (and there are so many more to choose from!). The method you choose isn’t important, the key is that you USE it! By pulling those tasks from your email inbox, you’ll be able to allow your inbox to return to its main purpose – communication! Click here for more tips on keeping your email inbox to-do list free.

An organized email system isn’t hard, but it doesn’t happen overnight. By implementing these strategies today, you’ll be well on your way to an organized and functioning email inbox!