How to Master Email

You may be interested to know that my work as a productivity consultant doesn't lead me to teach folks how to do more faster, more faster, until you fall apart. My goal is to help folks identify the things that are profitable and to focus on those tasks as their highest priority, all the time striving to maintain a profitable level of function in each profitable area of activity. In other words, you can have too much of a good thing. Such is often the case with email.

How many times do you check email every day? How much time does it take? How much of your email in the office is official and how much is unofficial?

Since our purpose is true to the basics of economics; that everyone works for an incentive, i.e. Your company exists and works for financial profit. Each worker works for the incentives of money and other benefits.

My intention is to help you accomplish your required tasks with less time in the workplace, for a non cash benefit: More time for your personal interests....more time off the job. This will create an environment of increased motivation and better creativity. Bosses and supervisors will do well to use this incentive with employees whenever possible. It will benefit your work environment and, in time, your bottom line.

Now, to you, my reader, whether you own the business or are the boss or worker, a good reason you should get your email habits under control because that action will allow you to reclaim much wasted (unprofitable) time and enable you to finish your day's work earlier, without cheating your email duties and without working faster and faster.

The solution is simple. First take stock of how many times a day you check email, and how many minutes each time you check it. This will vary, so just add up all the minutes you spend handling email on a random day...and note how many times you went to your inbox. After trying my suggestions below, measure again and compare.

For the next day, schedule a special time and promise yourself to check email only two times, at the times you decide on before you go home today. Twice a day, that's all. This will work well for most people. If you must have very responsive email for customer service, you can use an autoresponder to respond to each customer with a form letter for you, or you can automatically forward those emails to someone who can answer 95% of them for you, from a list you provide.

Do whatever it takes, but reduce your email checking to twice daily, with a view towards once a day after about 30 days on the two times a day schedule. If you find it necessary, you can send all your contacts a short email explaining that in order to give better service you will be answering email twice a day and give the hour that you schedule that for. Then they will know that if they get an email to you before your 11:00 check, they will get an answer very quickly. Also, they will know that if they miss the 11:00 check, they will get a response between 3:00 and 4:00 P.M.

Prepare your mind before you go to your inbox. Determine to aggressively delete any obvious spam on sight. Delete them almost without thinking, before you get tempted and distracted. Next, open each message that pertains to work and either answer it or flag it for research, investigation and follow-up. Do all you can to respond to each one as you open them, but you may have to put some in the pending mode, if research is required. If you have help, you may want to have a helper find out why Mrs. Jones' widget was not properly packed and send her a letter of apology and a refund, for example. Any emails that are personal should be ignored until all your work is done for the day. I use separate email addresses for different categories of correspondence and open each inbox only at its appropriate time.

Yes, this sounds rigid. That's because it is serious. We're talking about your livlihood. If you are among the majority of people who just kind of float along, going with the flow... whichever way the current runs, who knows where you'll end up? If you are among those few who want to rise to the top, ahead of your peers, this kind of management of your work habits, focused on productivity will help you to set a certain course to your personal definite destination, and will make it possible for you to arrive successfully. You can do it. I know you can. You just need to decide to navigate towards success, and then take the first step. The second and third steps will then come more easily.

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