As a small business owner it can feel like you don’t have enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished that you need to. Time management is key in being able to carry out all the required daily tasks. One of the biggest time killers is emails as you have to constantly deal with a stream of incoming communication. As email is the most preferred form of communication when it comes to businesses, it’s essential to make it as quick and efficient to deal with as possible.
Going through irrelevant and pointless email can take upto several hours of your day. It can sometimes lead you to having to overwork, whereby you sacrifice your time that you should spend resting and recuperating. In order to have a more productive day without having to work extra hours, here is how to effectively manage you emails to ensure maximum productivity.
Personal/business email
You need to make sure that you separate your email addresses for your business and personal use. This will allow you to only focus on business related communications during your working hours. Additionally, it will help you minimise the volume of emails that you will have to spend your time checking. Therefore, the first step to take when it comes to managing your emails is to have a separate email addresses for your business. This could also be beneficial if you want to share the usage of the same email address with staff or a partner.
Email schedule
Checking emails throughout the day will mean that you will keep on top of your inbox and there won’t be a build-up. However, it can have a negative impact on you productivity. Create a system and avoid getting constantly distracted from email, set certain times of a day when you would check your emails. For example, you might want to start your day by checking emails and then checking again at lunch. Avoid checking emails before you finish your working hours as it will likely lead to overworking yourself.
Organise
You need to make sure your inbox is organised and you have a system in place to organise your files. For example you could have a folder for all you client communications and another for all internal staff emails. This will help you focus on what is more of a priority and what you can save for later.
Work culture
Make it part of your work place culture to cut down on emails by volume and length. By cutting the volume of emails you can promote more spoken communication because it encourages employees and staff to interact with each other a lot more, which helps to create a friendlier workplace. If you are receiving lengthy emails from your staff, politely tell them to not make the emails so long. Your time is precious, and you need to manage it effectively so cut down the internal emails.
Smartphone
If you are out of the office or not able to check your emails through your usual workplace, then utilise your smartphone and check your emails on the go. Also, you can make the most out of your time by checking emails on the go. For example, if you are on an hour long train journey, you can effectively optimise your time by going through emails and responding while you have time.
Unsubscribe
You will likely receive countless emails which are irrelevant or should be classed as junk. So to minimise these emails make sure to unsubscribe to emails that you are somehow subscribed to. You may have purchased an item from a website that continuously sends you multiple emails as a result. Make sure you take couple of minutes to unsubscribe as it will save you more time in the future.
More on managing your time and productivity.
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