5 Rules for Managing Your Email
I don’t know about you – but email can be very stressful! As you sit at your computer, trying to get things done, and more and more email comes in, your ‘to do’ list keeps getting bigger and bigger!
About two years ago I made the conscious decision to take back control of my email and not let it get me stressed out. I was really inspired by a presentation from Merlin Mann from 43 Folders that I heard from Real Estate Connect SF a while back. He promotes the concept of ‘Inbox Zero.’ I don’t think there will be a day for me where I achieve that fate – but there are few ‘rules’ I live by when it comes to email to keep in manageable.
Here are 5 things rules I live by to help me stay sane – and also help to keep my Inbox to 20-40 emails max at any one time.
1. Don’t have your email open all day long and turn off those “bings.” Email can be the most distracting thing. You are working on something and then “bing!” you have an email, and you get distracted. Make sure to take the “bings” off you phone too! I check my email probably every 15-20 minutes or so. I check it more often if I am waiting for something deadline driven but otherwise I don’t let it dictate my ‘to do’ list of that day. Or, if I am in the middle of a big project, I will put my out of office with a specific time that you are answering email that day. This makes it a little easier o
2. Work backwards. When you read email read your oldest messages 1st – your goal is to move fast – get through those emails that are a couple days old. Reply, delete or file – and then move on to today’s emails.
3. Deal with email once. It’s like ’snail mail’ – don’t go to the mailbox, grab all your bills and junk and then leave it in a pile. Stand by the trash, throw out the junk – put the bills where they need to go and then move on.
When you get an email – don’t read it and then let it sit it your Inbox. Either delete it, reply and them delete, or reply and then file into a folder. Within your email, make sure you have your folders or labels set up. You can set them up by month, by project, by client name – whatever makes most sense to you and your business. If you are an agent – make a folder for each client. Every email you get – goes right in there and out of your Inbox.
4. End of the day – get your Inbox to your comfort level. What is your comfort level? Zero? 10? 20? 50? Whatever that is – the last 15 minutes of your work day, clean up your Inbox.
5. Don’t treat your email like a ‘to do’ list. I keep a running Word Doc called “working on” that I save to my desktop. As new email comes in, if it requires action on my part (more than a simple reply), I cut and paste any pertinent info from the email onto my list and then delete or file the email away. Otherwise your email box lies stagnant with all these emails you have read but have to take action on. What I like best about this method is that I group things by category on my ‘working on’ list. So for an agent, you could group things by: clients, prospects, marketing, and more. This has worked really well for me.
At the end of the day, I still battle with my email – but I try very hard to be smart and move fast through email!!
Do you have any tips you’d like to add? Would love your feedback, leave me a comment below! (but don’t email me HAHA!) 
just kidding…
Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News
Rebecca Frisbie | Jul 26, 2010 | Reply
I have found that when some serious Inbox purging needs to be done, I sort the Inbox by “From” which makes deleting and filing away faster because you can delete or move groups of email at a time instead of having to go through each email individually.
Chris Fyvie | Jul 26, 2010 | Reply
Well done. I kept managed to keep my inbox at 0 for a week but found it to be too much work to maintain. By keeping it to 20 or less my day is much more productive.
Great post – Twitter worthy – http://twitter.com/chrisfyvie
Josh | Jul 26, 2010 | Reply
Great post. I create rules in Outlook that will categorize my incoming mail based on subject line or sender. Example would be if I receive and efax, it would go into a folder called “Fax”. This saves time in sifting through the inbox for important items. It also helps in storing the emails for future reference.
Dawn Thomas | Jul 27, 2010 | Reply
I really need to put your advice into action, Katie! Thank you for sharing your e-mail management techniques!
Liz Benitez | Jul 27, 2010 | Reply
I’ve been pretty good at keeping my in box under control. I have my organization folders. My problem is the folders are not on my iphone. My options there are read and delete. So I pretty much ignore it. Well last night my husband is looking at my phone and sees that I have 96 unread emails, when in actuality I took care of most of those on my comp.
Any suggestions on how to fix this?
Mike Payne - Sarasota Realtor | Jul 27, 2010 | Reply
This topic hurt me to read. Yeah, it sucks to be me.
I’m one of Pavlov’s mice, trained to click Send/Receive every 5 minutes.
All but serious deadlines cause me to waste time on email. My challenge is not to check & respond for at least 60 minutes. What invariably happens is that (I allow) email to distract me.
In my feeble defense, I justify by saying (in real estate) customers (or people involved in a transaction) need quick response. One email takes me away from what I was doing. Two emails causes me to where I was before that one email. Three emails later, and I can’t even remember forget what I was doing.
Thanks, Katie, for reminding me just how ineffectively I’ve become.
Mike
Tim Ferriss regularly talks about managing email – it sounds soooooooo refreshing.
I’m
@AgentSteph | Jul 27, 2010 | Reply
I feel okay leaving up to ten items in the inbox, but I also have a folder called “LATER”. It’s reserved for things I’d like to read or follow up on at some point, but aren’t important enough to stay in my inbox.
I typically back to the the “LATER” folder on my laptop in the evenings – perhaps after I clear out my Google RSS feed.
Alex Cortez | Jul 28, 2010 | Reply
Good tips, Katie. For me, I particularly emphasize the ‘no emails during important projects’ rule. It becomes too distracting to have outside interferences and anyone who needs me would know to call me. I would also suggest comparmentalizing: only use your work email address for work correspondence (that does NOT include shopping on amazon, creating accounts with social media, etc), that way when you need to check work emails you won’t get swamped with unrelated emails.
Derek Massey | Jul 28, 2010 | Reply
Agree with 1, 3 and 4.
#2: I do the opposite. The most recent emails are likely the most relevant. Also, if there is a chain, it is the most current. Working backwards promotes processing irrelevant, untimely information.
#5: I’d modify this. Don’t use your “inbox” as a to-do list. But I have created an “Action” subfolder which *is* my to-do list. Lifehacker’s “Inbox Zero” methods works great for me. Read the email, make a decision: answer in a minute, delete, or file to action, archive, or hold.
Donna Johnston | Jul 28, 2010 | Reply
Great tips Katie! One of the best feelings of accomplishment I get are those few days a year when both my inbox is clean and the top of my desk is clean!!
Kansas City Real Estate | Jul 29, 2010 | Reply
Great advice, although it is to late for me. I have started using communication on Facebook and Twitter due to communicate with clients because my emails get lost in the huge amounts of emails I get everyday.
I have also started to stop my drip email programs due to the annoyance of emails.
Teena | Jul 31, 2010 | Reply
I usually filter my email and create folders for it. Whenever I receive a spam that went into my inbox, I marked it as spam or just block it. I no longer worry too much about my inbox, I manage all my email in one account, that could help as well if you have lots.
Katie Lance | Aug 1, 2010 | Reply
Thanks everyone for your comments!
Rebecca – good tip, I do that as well when I can!
Chris – I agree, for me that majoc # is right around 20
Josh – good tip, I know you can do that in gmail as well – very helpful
Dawn – thank you!
Liz – what I do with my phone is delete anything ASAP that I don’t need to keep and then that deletes it from my email completely. If I need to answer someone right away I do so and then when I get back to my computer I “file” that email. It works for me…
Mike – very true – there is a balance between wanting to get back to someone right away and not checking email every moment. I suggest try to do it every 30 minutes – doesn’t seem like a long time but 30 uninterrupted minutes is a lifetime!!
AgentSteph – bravo for getting to 10!! I like the idea of a “later” folder
Alex – thank you and good point – I do the same thing and have different emails for different reasons – however having too many email addresses is a whole other issue. I personally have 3: work, home/family and 1 for newsletters/purchasing online, etc
Derek – thank you! good points
Donna – thank you! I completely agree!!
Kansas City RE – interesting! I do think there is still a place for drip email marketing – there is a huge audience still on on FB and Twitter, so it’s good not to miss anyone!
Teena – good points, thank you!
Katie
NewJerseyApartments | Aug 2, 2010 | Reply
Managing email effectively is important to keep your inbox clean. More than that, if you archive your email nicely in terms labeling, you can retrieve the information easily. This will be helpful when you are dealing with lots of business emails.
James Chai | Aug 9, 2010 | Reply
Lots of good tips here. We like utilizing the tools provided by 3rd party email vendors (see our list http://bit.ly/diCGso).
Being in control of emails will be a life long challenge – we thinks … lol.
Taylor White, PHD | Aug 11, 2010 | Reply
This post reminds me a lot of what made Tim Ferris famous.
I like what he advocates.
Check sometime around 11 and sometime around 4.
Checking email only once a day is not enough – and not practical.
Katie Lance | Aug 17, 2010 | Reply
thanks everyone for your comments!!
Mark Bailey | Aug 17, 2010 | Reply
Some good tips. I have seen videos of Merlin’s Inbox Zero presentation (done at Google I think) and he is good. I mainly use Gmail, and as long as only have 1 page worth of email in my inbox I am happy. The rest of my mail is then either archived because I have extracted what I want from it, or tagged with ‘action’, ‘waiting on’, ‘read/review’, and some others.This of course is all based on the concept of ‘Getting Things Done’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
santomon | Dec 1, 2010 | Reply
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