Posts Tagged ‘email management’
The Benefits of Gmail
The Email Inbox Monster
I was inspired for this blog post when talking to a friend of mine the other day. She is starting a bookkeeping business and will be working from home. She made a point of saying how she will have to start managing her mornings better; she has found herself having to take a computer break around 10 or 11 to have a shower and get dressed. (Yes, office folks, that is something we work at home people can do – work in pajamas or sweats if we choose)
What my friend has found happening is she is getting lost in emails and work before she has even gotten ready to start her day. She wakes up before the kids and hubby and goes to check her emails. She starts acting on some of the emails and soon has to rush to get the kids off to school and then sits back down at the computer to finish what she started. When she finally looks up it is mid morning and she now needs to get showered and dressed. She also made the comment – “and it seems like I have been working all morning yet nothing was getting done”.
She’s falling into the email trap and it is so easy to do.
Time Management experts will tell you to plan out your day and schedule in time for checking emails. Your inbox can be the biggest time-suck in any workday – whether at home or in an office setting. The best piece of advice they recommend is to NOT check your emails first thing in the morning but to attend to tasks that need completion first. Accomplish and finish one or two main tasks and then check your emails. The best process I have seen so far is:
First, have a to-do list or schedule set for the day. Take the time to write it out the night before – or once for the entire week with adjustments during the day and things change – then have a revolving system that goes as follows:
- Tackle one or two main tasks first thing. Get them done!
- Then make time to check emails. Process the emails as recommended in another blog post here – DANG my Inbox Looks Great! * VIP!!! remember that you do not have to followup on each email immediately.
- Move onto the next items in your daily schedule and later go back to check your inbox again.
Ideally you should be able to check your emails 3-4 times per day, depending upon your type of business and how work is assigned/processed. The main point is to have a plan around your daily tasks, larger projects and your inbox. Letting them all run wild will result in you thinking statements as my friend did and you will find yourself being less productive, getting more and more disorganized and wasting time.
What tips do you have for keeping the inbox monster at bay?? Please share them here.
A friendly reminder about your inbox…
Last year I wrote an article on how to better manage your inbox so it does not take control. Yesterday I realized was not following my own advice lately and was reading this again to refresh my memory on what I should be doing. Here’s the article for those who may not have seen it…
Is your email inbox, or inboxes, as many of us have more than one, full of old received and sent emails?
There are a few easy steps anyone can follow to help take back control of your inbox and emails.
Before you get started, make a point of setting aside a specific time each day to check your email. It is so easy to become distracted by dealing with emails you lose time for dealing with other projects or work. Three times per day is plenty; unless you are in a Customer Service role and as part of your job, you may require doing this more often. A good schedule is and hour after the start of your day, an hour after lunch and an hour before quitting time.
So, what’s the system, the simple steps? We like to refer to it as:
- Dump it, if it’s junk, or not fitting into one of the following categories.
- Archive it. This means file it away if you will need to refer to it later.
- Not now, later. If you’ll need time to deal with this email later, then flag it for followup and enter a reminder, so you don’t forget.
- Get it done, now. If you can deal with it, then do so, immediately.
Sounds easy, but in order to make this work you have to follow a few simple rules of picking which category the emails fit into. Read the rest of this entry »
Stop Spying on Me!
A friend sent an email the other day, panicking about whether people were getting her emails or not? Her reason for thinking they were not going through? She was not getting the ‘read receipts’ back.
I laughed so hard! I am one of the people she is always sending these read receipts to and every time when it asks me if it’s okay to send a receipt I say No.
Why? I guess I feel it’s an invasion of my privacy. I feel it’s no one else’s business when I read the emails sent to me.
It’s not like I avoid my inbox. It pretty much rules my life as a virtual assistant and without I would have a very hard time working with clients. I have a schedule for that as well as time and work every day.
When she and I spoke about it and she was trying to understand why I always hit no. I realized that it always came back to the privacy issue. Nothing else…
What is your take on read receipts? Do you click yes or no? I’d love to know if I am the only one with this viewpoint.
Work and Family balancing
A post on one of the forums I follow, was reminding people that October (in the US) is National Work and Family Month. More than 5 years ago, the U.S. Senate concurred with the National Work-Life Initiative that “supporting a balance between work and personal life is in the best interest of national worker productivity” and that “reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority” and declared October to be National Work & Family Month. It’s meant to bring awareness to everyone that having a good work- family balance benefits all parties.
Working from a home office as I do, some might think it is easy to balance out work and family. It has its benefits; I can take a 15 minute break and vacuum, walk the dog or put supper in the oven – all things that help my family along. But there are also many challenges that come from having your office in your home. Overcoming these challenges usually comes down to planning and communicating. You need to make sure you can do your work, but have your family and friend time as well – in many cases that is why you have your office at your home.
What challenges could I have working at home?
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