Sometimes at work, doesn’t it just suck when you’re trying to work through emails. In many organizations, there’s an over-reliance on email communication to accomplish tasks. It is not uncommon for many leaders and organizations to rely exclusively on email to do business. Running your business or team exclusively through managing email isn’t effective. In this post, I’m going to share some email best practices that I have found to make myself and my team’s more productive.
Email Best Practice #1 – Don’t Constantly Review Your Email
First, and this is often repeated in a lot of similar articles on email best practices, you should only check email a few times a day. My approach is to check email at 9 am, 11 am, 2 pm, and 4 pm. If it takes almost 20 minutes to get back on track from a distraction, why would I always reply to every instance of when an email hits my inbox.
Scan, Delete, Sort, Respond
When I do check my email, I follow a 4-step process. Scan, sort, delete, and respond.
- Scan – When I look at my email inbox, I will quickly scan to see if there is anything from anybody who might require a more immediate response than someone else. I’m mainly trying to look at who has contacted me.
- Delete – Next, I will also do a quick review based on the subject line to see what I can automatically delete. Some emails are junk, and I don’t mean just spam either. It might be something that wasn’t meant for me. I might be part of a distribution list that I should remove myself from. Some emails get sent to me by mistake. My goal is to clear out my inbox of anything that I don’t want to waste my time with – junk.
- Sort – With this task, I am attempting to determine urgency and priority. Does what I see, need to be tackled right away, or is it something that could be left till later? When I have a good understanding of what those are, I’m going to tackle the most important and urgent emails first.
- Respond – I’m only responding to emails that need to be done. Once they have been dealt with, I’m either going to delete it or sort it and file it away. And I do that until I get to Zero Inbox.
Email Best Practice #2 – Get to Zero Inbox
My goal is to have zero emails in my inbox. There are days that it might be tougher for me to do so, with meetings and other interruptions, so I won’t always meet my target, but that’s OK. Whether I get to zero each day or not, my goal is to be at zero emails in my inbox by the end of work week. Getting as close as possible to that target is essential for me.
Why Zero Inbox?
In coaching others about ways to improve their impact and effectiveness, I always discuss the importance of limiting distractions. Some people get overwhelmed by the sight of lots of emailing piling up. Some people struggle with managing their inbox, and it’s often due to having a lack of organizational skills or a good process in place. I believe if you don’t manage your inbox, your inbox will manage you. Sometimes that means it can overwhelm you. If you can focus on having the least amount of emails to action visible, you are going to feel better about work volume.
Try to Touch an Email Once
For some people, like me, I also use my inbox as a form of a to-do list. If there’s something left in my inbox, it’s because I still need to action it. Once I am finished with it, I want it out of my sight. I try to touch an email once. It’s a reminder for me that this is something that’s on my To-Do List that I need to do. The more you try and focus on having a zero inbox, the more it forces you to act, saving you time and making you more organized.
Email Best Practice #3 – Rules Are Essential
To help you achieve Zero Inbox, it is so vital that you have established email rules as well. Unfortunately, I sometimes receive an insane amount of emails. Most of them do not require my immediate attention, though. Despite the onslaught of emails, I find I can manage my inbox well due to the rules I utilize. For example, I am on many distribution lists that I don’t need to check regularly. I have created folders and rules to automatically direct emails to specifics folders, so I can review them when needed. An important tip to note, ensure the rule excludes moving anything where you are directly cc’d, bcc’d, or where your name is called out specifically in the “To” field. If someone has taken the time to call me out individually, then I know that they view me as an essential stakeholder with their email. They want me to read it at some point.
Not all rules will capture and redirect everything, though, so using rules in combination with a scan, sort, delete, respond approach will significantly help you. To ensure you demonstrate effective email best practices, you want to make your life easier by managing your inbox effectively.
Email Best Practice # 4 – Unsubscribe Often
It’s also vital to make sure that you are unsubscribing from any emails that continually come into your inbox. Sometimes there are webinars, or there are things that you sign up for maybe to download a report from a website. Someone wants to try and sell you something. Instead of just deleting the email, you should probably take the time to unsubscribe from it. There is a good chance you might get another email from them. If you do legitimately want to receive emails from a company or person you have subscribed to, it might be worthwhile to create a folder and a rule for them as well. Doing so helps to clean up your inbox, but it also provides you with valuable insight into how often and of what value those emails are when you review them. Scanning all those subscribed emails, it might become clear that there isn’t value in you continuing to subscribe anymore.
During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became so clear to me that my email was part of more subscription lists than I realized. Companies sending out their acknowledgment and update emails to address COVID-19 was happening at such a frenetic pace. Many companies were emailing me that I didn’t even recognize or realize that still had my email addresses. It was a great time to unsubscribe from those companies that I had limited or no interest in continuing to communicate with or hear from anymore.
Final Email Best Practice # 5 – Turn Off Notifications
Lastly, I want to talk about notifications. In today’s always-on world, everyone is reachable 24 hours a day. I’ve mistakenly thought that I needed to be “on” and available at all times. I used to respond to every beep, ring, or vibration irrespective of the hour. Doing so led some of my team to feel they needed to do the same – an unintended consequence of my behavior. Eventually, I realized that I need to turn off notifications on my phone. Doing so changed my whole perspective, providing better balance for all. Don’t let your phone guide how you choose to communicate and when. Not everything is urgent or requires immediate attention.
Learn from these email best practices, and you can take your performance and productivity to the next level. For a regular dose of advice, tips, and tricks from Evolving Management, follow us on our company LinkedIn page. You can also follow me or my podcast, The Chris Hanna Show on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn or visit chrishanna.ca for more solutions. Let’s connect.
