How To: Manage E-mail Overload: Steps To Get You Started

Karen Susman | 1 Dec 2006 11:46 AM

One of the biggest time-wasters is handling or not handling e-mail. There are people who have a backlog of 2000+ e-mails that they can’t figure out what to do with. There are computer programs such as Outlook that can help you manage your e-mail. There are spam filters that can reduce the number of irritating, unwanted e-mails you receive.

Here are a few ways to get all those other e-mails under control.

1. Keep track of how long you’re spending on e-mail. If you get fifty e-mails a day and spend three minutes reading and responding to each, that chews up 2.5 hours a day. If you make $40,000 a year, it’s costing you $50 a day to process e-mail.

2. Take yourself off any unnecessary bulk email lists that don’t provide you with any relevant information or that you never look at.

3. Ask your friends and co-workers to delete you from their automatic list of 300 of their nearest and dearest they send jokes and chain letters to. Some e-mails take a minute just to scroll down through all those addresses to get to the message. Then you find out it’s a cartoon that will take four minutes to download. Then you feel the need to respond to your friend, if you can remember who sent you the e-mail to you, with “Cute”. This just encourages him or her to send you more stuff you could live without nicely for the rest of your days.

4. Answer e-mail at two or three set times a day. To help you adjust or turn off the bouncing icon on your desktop and the voice that announces, “You’ve got mail.”

5. If you usually put your contact information in your e-mails, save time by creating an automatic signature.

6. When you’re on hold on the phone, delete twenty emails.

7. Set a good example for your e-mailers.

a. Summarize your content in the subject line. For instance, instead of saying, “Let’s talk about the party plans,” say, “Recommend two large tents. Must order by Friday, August 25.”

b. Write a complete message. Instead of writing a response that says, “Cool,” respond by saying, “Jim, I like your idea of having two, 5 x 7 foot panels behind the stage so that we can display banners.” This will help your reader know what you’re referring to without having to go back and search. Your records will be more complete, too.

c. Consider why you’re CC-ing people. I found myself on a list that I had no reason to be on. I asked to be removed, which I was. But, I’m still getting blast e-mails from other people I don’t know who were on the list. A recent one asked if I’d like to carpool to a meeting in Indianapolis. Considering I live in Denver, I don’t think this e-mail concerned me at all.

d. If you’re sending your e-mail to multiple recipients, send blind copies. Your receivers don’t like to see their e-mail address broadcast willy-nilly. This is more personal and private, too.

Save time by letting people know you’re preferred means of communication. If you’re ever received an e-mail followed by a fax to confirm the e-mail and then a phone call to confirm that the fax was received, you know what a waste of time this duplication can be for the sender and for the receiver.

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