Top 3 Email Time Management Strategies for Small Businesses
The amount of email that the average small business owner receives in a day is truly overwhelming. If you don't have a system in place, you could easily spend half of your day just on email! There are a few email time management strategies for small businesses that will really help you tackle the email beast and become much more productive.
Use Folders – I'm sure you don't just let reams of paper pile up on your desk in one big pile. The same goes for email in your inbox. Deal with every message. Set up specific folders according to what categories your email falls in. Every message in your inbox either gets trashed, actioned or filed. Try not to leave any more than 10 or 20 emails in your inbox at any one time. The same goes for your sent folder. Take a few minutes each day to sort through your sent and either file the messages or delete them. With an effective filing system in place, you will quickly be able to refer back to messages later when you need to.
Set Specific Email Times – Having your email open at all times while you are working is really going to impact your productivity. It's just too distracting. Instead, spend 20 or 30 minutes two or three times a day to deal with email. Turning off the email notifications is a big help too. If you are constantly being interrupted (even for a second) every few minutes by a beep or an email notification pop-up, you will find that your concentration and focus will really suffer.
Use Built-in Filters and Tools – Take the time to mark spam as spam when it comes in. The more you "train" your spam filter, the more efficient it becomes. If you subscribe to different newsletters or email lists, take the time to unsubscribe if you find that you've lost interest or they are no longer of any value to you. Most email clients allow you to set "rules" to automatically perform an action when a certain type of email comes in. If you frequently receive a certain type of email, set a rule for your email client to automatically file it, respond to it, forward it to someone or delete it. You'll find this will really save you time.
These three simple email time management strategies will get you started on taking
control of your time and becoming much more effective in your business. For more
time management tips and strategies, sign up for a free time management course at http://www.actionabletimemanagementtraining.com/free_time_management_course.html.
Recommendation: Free Time Management and Productivity Course to get more done from your home office.