In the past 10 years email has taken over. Most of us have clogged In Boxes with hundreds if not thousands of messages. The typical computer user has 3 to 5 email addresses they try to manage. We daily sift through the spam messages to find the ‘important’ messages only to discover our Aunt Jackie has sent 3 more jokes and a survey from Bill Gates. But what about the important ones? How can you keep ahead?
First, install an effective Spam filter. www.cloudmark.com offers a solution for $40 per year - a small price to pay to have hundreds of messages automatically disappear.
Second, keep your Inbox empty. Efficiency experts recommend never reading an email more than once. If you read an email and can respond in less than 2 minutes, do it. If you save it for later, you will have to re-read it and ultimately waste time. Once you have replied get it out of your Inbox.
Third, create folders to organize your emails. All email programs (Outlook, Outlook Express, Hotmail, Gmail, etc) allow you to create folders. Emails that don’t require your immediate attention can be moved to a folder for later review. Email newsletters and personal emails can be moved to different folders.
Some suggest having ‘time-related’ folders. For example, an ‘Action’ folder for emails requiring more than 2 minutes to respond, an ‘Archive’ folder for long term reference and a ‘Hold’ folder for emails that need to be addressed within a couple days.
The key is find a method that works for you, but focus on keeping your Inbox from overflowing. This will provide you the opportunity to pay attention to the emails that truly need your attention.
Do a Google search on “how to manage email” to find dozens of online resources.
-Doug DeVries
Equine-Design.com
doug@equine-design.com
Copyright © 2008 The NW Horse Source, LLC
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