Email Management: How to Remove the Stress

Managing email can overwhelm anyone, especially if you receive an excess of 100 emails daily. Often the thought of taking a day off and returning to a full inbox causes frustration and stress. Here are some suggestions for managing your email so frustration doesn’t set in and cause undue tension.

Create folders and filters.

First step:  Create folders for action items, high priorities, and to-dos. Then create filters for anything you know needs to go to a specific folder. This helps the clean-up process go smoother and quicker. You also now have three main folders and can assign the priority level of each.

Eliminate junk email.

Second step:  Get the nonsense emails under control. This is huge! How many junk emails, newsletters, or advertisements do you get on a daily basis? Yes, you probably want to keep most of them, but you don’t need to be distracted until you are ready to review them. Create another folder for these emails and call it “Read Later”, then create a filter and add all these emails to that folder. When you have time you can review them.

Create templates for common responses.

Third step:  Templates or canned responses save time. Most of us are replying to similar emails and questions on a daily basis. By creating templates, those responses and emails are extremely easy and quick. It also allows your Virtual Executive Assistant to handle these emails on your behalf.

Sync your email accounts to your phone.

Fourth step:  Make sure you can access your email on your phone. Even though this may seem like an intrusion, it is important. When your email syncs to your phone, you can make use of idle time by cleaning up your inbox and handling small issues.

Here is our final tip: You do not need to have your notifications turned on all the time. When you need to work hard and focus, turn them off. 

Managing email is typically the #1 pain point for most of our clients. If this is you, please reach out to us for a discussion on how an Executive Assistant can help. Not only can they manage email for you, but they can also implement every step listed above. Don’t spend your valuable time on non-revenue generating tasks. Reach out to We Recruit Well today!

That new Assistant you are planning on hiring? They may have many other tricks up their sleeve. For example, utilizing apps such as Sortd or Simple Gmail notes. Both are great tools to manage tasks, workflows, and inboxes!