Email can be a lifesaver when communication is critical and the recipient can’t or won’t answer the phone. However, you may have found, as I have, that it can be a pitfall when it consumes hours a day or when the need to check it has become as much a habit as using the restroom.
According to Peter Turla, founder of the National Management Institute, about 65 percent of the participants in his time management seminars compulsively check their e-mail. “Psychologically, I think it’s like opening a little surprise package,” he says, explaining one possible reason for the compulsion. He’s right. Who doesn’t like packages in the mail? As Julie Andrews observed in Sound of Music, brown paper packages tied up with string happens to be one of our favorite things.
I love getting email from friends and family. And because I love my work, I love emails from clients and business associates too. I get energy when I am in communication with people who are digging into the financial and career areas of their lives, so I become creative when I see those message items fill up my mailbox and begin digging through them all. I’ve also discovered that favorite things, like McDonald’s french fries, lemon meringue pie, and brown paper emails tied up in code can turn into a negative thing. Consumed in moderation, they can increase my enjoyment of life; consumed in excess, they can consume my health, my time, my energy, even my lifespan. I need to set up boundaries. Here are a few that I use to keep me out of Emailers Anonymous; they may help you to prioritize the email conundrum in your life:
• Clean your inbox. Like dirty dishes in the sink, an expanding and disorganized inbox can feel overwhelming. I never keep more than 2 or 3 emails in my inbox. After reading an email, I immediately move the items to an appropriate folder, such as Client Contacts, Referrals, Need Reply, etc. If I need to find the information later, I have it at my fingertips. If it is an item that I only need to look at once, I immediately delete it and never think about it again.
• Set up different e-mail folders – one for vendors, one for clients and one for associates, for instance – so you can organize and prioritize. See above.
• Prioritize your e-mails in terms of urgency, so every e-mail doesn’t require an instant reply. If necessary, set up an automatic reply that says you check e-mail at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., for example, and advise people with urgent requests to call instead.
• Set aside 15 to 30 minutes in the evening to reply to detail-oriented e-mails. This will give you time to craft a good response instead of typing on the fly during the day, possibly risking poor communication.
• Spam filters are a must. I can not tell you how much I hate spam without using foul language, so I’ll just say, use this tool. It will save time even if you have to browse through the Junk Mail folder occasionally to make sure it didn’t eat something it should not have.
If you are looking to find better ways to utilize email, email marketing tools, or better ways to organize email, please don’t hesitate to call me. Make email your friend, not your foe.
Yes, That Green Guy Freaks Me Out, Too…
