In today’s world, millions of emails are being sent every day, and reading through them and responding to each of them can make you feel unproductive and stressed. Emails are an important part of day-to-day lives and communications, especially for business.
However, checking emails is time-consuming and can distract you from other important tasks. There is email automation software that makes managing emails easy and less time-consuming. However, you can also manage time spent on emails on your own. Here are some tips on how to spend less time on email handling.
Table of Contents
1.Turn Off Notifications and Check Emails at Specific Intervals
Emails are reactionary; as soon as that sound pops up, you lose concentration and start thinking about responding to the email. Some emails don’t need an immediate response, so turning off the notification can help you spend less time on email. Schedule specific times for checking and responding to emails. You can choose to check your mail three times a day; in the morning, at lunch, and toward the end of the day, or set a specific amount of time you would want to spend on checking emails.
2.Use Shortcuts, Filters and Set Up a Few Email Folders
It is important to use shortcuts to manage emails. You can create folders based on the nature of the business, the type of client, or the kind of response it needs so that they can easily be located later.
You can also set up filters and rules so emails can be automatically directed to the specific folders you have set up. If you are on the BCC or CC line in your work, you can send such emails to a different folder. This way, you will reduce unnecessary emails in your inbox.
3.Delete and Prioritize Emails
Professionals have hundreds of emails sent to their inboxes daily but only respond to a few. One can use the single-touch rule, which means when you get in contact with a new email for the first time, you should delete or archive it. Reply to emails based on their importance.
Failing to reply can also be a reply- it’s important to give attention to only the important emails. Remembering that the more you respond to emails, the more they’ll come will help you spend less time on email.
Some might argue that there is no reason to delete the read messages from the inbox due to the search feature that can find a single message from a thousand others. Still, when there are other emails, you cannot help but start reading through them.
4.Manage Your Subscriptions
You can use automated filtering to handle newsletters that you use, unsubscribe from irrelevant newsletters, and block spam emails that keep flooding your inbox even after trying to unsubscribe. If you do not want to unsubscribe from certain sources, you can customize how often you receive the emails, like weekly or monthly.
Failing to reply can also be a reply- it’s important to give attention to only the important emails. Remembering that the more you respond to emails, the more they’ll come will help you spend less time on email.
Summary
Processing emails is an important part of your work. It can be overwhelming if you don’t set boundaries. It is possible to spend less time on email, and responding to emails can become productive by implementing the tips above.
