The Correct Way to Manage Your Email in 6 Easy Steps
It happened again. I was sitting in my performance review hearing the same thing. “You’re really good at your technical abilities, but your task lead has been having a problem with your communication and your consistency in following up.”
I had heard this so many times, and at the time I was upset that this was the thing that was really holding me back. But, I’m older now, and I realize that communication is a huge part of being a team member and manager.
Little did I know, I was managing my email completely wrong, and that was affecting other areas of my work. If I could just get this one skill down, it would enhance my productivity immensely.
One day, I came across a training that completely changed the way that I approached my email. I didn’t realize that it would change the way that I managed my workload as well.
Below, I’ll teach you my new way of managing my emails, which was adapted from my initial training.
Step 1: Delete Your Current Folders
I’ve tried several times now on several different occasions to have folders for different aspects of my work. It has all led to one outcome: emails getting lost.
I couldn’t tell you how many hours I spent trying to remember what folder I had put a certain email in. And once I placed it in a folder, I could no longer search the entire inbox to find the email. I had to search in each folder individually.
Eventually I learned that this was unnecessary. Most email tools have search features that are more than good enough for you to find any email you can think of. You can search by keyword, date, sender, category, and so many other criteria.
In my opinion, I think folders hurt you more than they help you. But, if you do still feel the need to have categorized folders, then make sure that you do the following two things.
- Only move emails to a folder AFTER you have completed whatever action or response is required by the email.
- Make sure your folders are subfolders of the main inbox. That way you will still be able to search all emails at once. In Gmail, I believe that this is the default, but that is not the case in Microsoft Outlook.
Step 2: Create a Done Folder
I know this sounds conflicting given my last step. But I believe you only need one folder: call it “Done”.
That’s it.
Everything that is in this folder is done, and everything that is not in this folder is still in your inbox and is not done.
Get started and clear out your inbox right now! Move every email that is already complete or has already been responded to into the Done folder.
You should now only be left with the pending emails still in your inbox. For me, this has been great because I make it a goal of mine every day to get my inbox down to zero, or as close to zero as possible. It’s almost a game that I play. Some days, I succeed, and some days I don’t, but I should at least see a steady overall decrease in inbox size.
Okay let’s move on.
Step 3: Do the Quick Emails NOW
So, you’re looking at all of your emails that still need to be responded to, and it’s overwhelming. But take a deep breath. You can do it.
As, you read through your emails, you can perform three tasks. I’ve separated these tasks into three steps.
For the first step, we’ll deal with quick emails.
If your email takes less than two minutes to complete or respond to, do it NOW.
I know this is harder than it sounds. I’ve found myself ignoring these emails not because they were hard, but because they were annoying. Either the sender irritated me, or the question just seemed stupid. Sometimes I didn’t want to give bad news, like telling my boss that I haven’t finished a certain assignment yet. Sometimes, I just didn’t want to answer emails.
Whatever your reason may be, your new rule now is to just answer the email. Suck up your feelings and do it. You’ll feel much better when you move the email out of your inbox.
Step 4: Schedule the Long Emails
So you got through the quick emails, and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. Now, you have to tackle the hard ones.
The long emails are the ones that will take a significant portion of your time. Maybe you have to do some research or root cause analysis in order to respond to it. Either way, if you can’t do the task right now, you need to schedule it.
If it doesn’t get scheduled, it will not get done.
In Outlook, you can click and drag the email into the calendar icon on the bottom left hand of your screen. This will open up a calendar event and you can find a free block of time to insert it.
In Gmail, you can click the triple dot icon at the top of the email. Then click “Create Event”. This will open up a calendar event, and you can once again find a free block of time.
Creating a calendar event not only blocks off time for yourself, but it also blocks time away from any other person on your team. That way no one will try to disturb you as you’re doing your work. Hopefully.
Note: Keep the email in your inbox until it is done. Just because you scheduled it, doesn’t mean it belongs in the Done folder.
Step 5: Mark the Emails That Need Others
Sometimes you can’t get your email done unless another person completes a task first. Mark these emails as such.
You could do so by categorizing it. In Outlook, I use the Yellow category, and title it “Awaiting Response”.
This way, you’ll always know when you have to follow up on something. You can be the annoying person in the office who is constantly asking others for an update on a certain email. Why? Because you having a glaring yellow labeled email that won’t seem to leave your inbox.
As annoying as this may seem, those who are always following up are usually the ones most on their game. Nobody can hide from them or bypass them. They’re taken more seriously.
Step 6: Sort Your Email From Oldest to Newest
Finally, because you have shifted your self to become the ultimate “getting things done” persona, you should organize your email from oldest to newest. The oldest emails should be at the top of your list.
If your email sits in your inbox for longer than one week, shame on you.
To conclude, your email management should be simple and as efficient as possible. I hope with these steps, you’ll know longer look at your inbox with dread, but with excitement for all the things that you can accomplish for the day.
