Master Your Inbox: Effective Email Management

By Liz Canavan

We all have it and we all hate it: email clutter. Often it’s an inbox with a few thousand emails waiting for attention. Other times it’s the hassle of responding to the fresh  influx. Regardless of why email gives you a headache, I hope these tips help lighten your electronic load.

I recently spent an evening at a women’s networking group where the topic was    email management. As dry as the topic may sound, the room was captivated by        the speaker who showed us tips and tricks to decrease our inbox time. At one point,  the speaker asked for who had the most emails in their inbox as of that night. The “winner” had 15,000.

Here are some tips that I now use because they were helpful. I’m not perfect with my email, but my inbox has a tidy “0” in it as of this typing.

Use your subject line.

When writing a short email, use the subject line to communicate your entire message, ending it with EOM (End of Message) so the reader knows there is nothing more in the body of the email.

Example: Meet me 11a @ Carelli’s for VC, EOM.

Here are some other acronyms to include in your subject line for simplicity:

FYI: for your information

HTH: hope that helps

RSN: real soon now

NRN: no response needed (for the email-this is the end of the conversation)

File your messages quickly

The faster you can file away messages, the cleaner your inbox will be and the fewer action items you will have to respond to. To do this, set up the right folders to hold what you receive. Create folders to hold information for your work/life needs.

From my inbox, most items can be read and deleted. If an email requires my action, they go in my A file (my “Action” file).

A- Action

B - Maybe read/reference

Many other folders – either a subset of “Business” or “Personal”

Have 1 sacred hour before you open your inbox

The moment you open your inbox, you are ready for requests of all sorts. Almost every email could hold an action for you to follow through on, so be proactive with your time. Instead of starting your day with an email “check”, have 30 minutes to an hour of sacred, pro-active time with your morning before you even open that inbox. You will accomplish  a lot more with your focused time and energy than if you began your day responding to requests and needs of others.

Mastering your inbox will help you create more time in your day, feel more in control of your daily activities and clear the clutter from your electronic home.