Steps to Stop Letting Email Consume So Much Time

The average professional receives over 150 email messages every business day; however, many executives can get upwards of 300 or 400 emails per day. The idea of reading all those emails can be overwhelming, let alone responding or doing anything with them. Quite a few of my clients groan as soon as we start discussing emailing, noting that their emails can be very time-consuming.

Control your email instead of letting it control you. With a few action steps, you can take back power over how much time gets invested in your emails.

- Shift your mentality from "checking" to "processing" so your inbox is never a holding zone and each email is no longer handled more than once, limiting wasted time; move tasks to a running to-do list, appointment requests to your calendar, reference emails to your personal folders and those messages no longer needed to your trash file.

- Employ tools to help... Technological tools like Boomerang, Mailstrom and SaneBox can assist in automating your email processing so it happens without your time doing it.

- Send fewer emails out to get fewer replies back; sometimes, a quick phone conversation can replace multiple, back-and-forth email messages, even if you have to follow that call with a summary email for documentation purposes.

- Unsubscribe from subscriptions you are no longer reading. I realize that deleting an email takes only a second; however, those seconds add up, and the time it takes to unsubscribe is likely less than the accumulation of all the time deleting those multiple messages received. While the content might've been of interest to you when you signed up for it, if your need for that information has changed, take the time to unsubscribe.

- Bundle together when you get the subscriptions you read. If you are subscribed to an eNewsletter via AOL Mail, Gmail, Google Apps, Hotmail, iCloud, MSN, Outlook.com, Windows Live or Yahoo! Mail, you can utilize Unroll.me to get all of the subscription emails received each day in a "rollup", which is one email with all your designated subscriptions that appears in your inbox every day at the time you choose. As you are choosing which emails go into your "rollup", you can unsubscribe directly from Unroll.me with one click. Further, Unroll.me offers this bundled email for free... Yes, that's right; it's free. If you are not already subscribed to lists via one of those email services, simply create a free Gmail account and, then, update your subscriptions with it. For FAQs, click here.

- Strategically utilize rules in your email tool. Whether you check your new messages in Gmail, Mac Mail, Outlook or somewhere else, you can create rules for certain emails to bypass the inbox and go directly to a designated folder. For example, if you get Google Alerts, you could have them culled together into their own folder rather than processing them from your inbox. Likewise, if you have a few VIP contacts needing more immediate responses, give each of them his or her own folder and, then, create a rule for messages from that person to go directly into the specified folder, which will draw your attention into them needing a reply sooner than finding them amidst other messages in the inbox.

- Establish others' expectations. As human-beings, when there is a lapse in information provided, we inherently fill in the blanks ourselves. When it comes to how quickly you are going to get back to someone sending you an email, you probably do not want anyone creating this expectation for him- or herself. When you are clear on your own goals for how you plan to use email as a tool in your productivity toolbox and you are aware of your time constraints for when you will realistically be able to process newly received messages, you can designate what are appropriate expectations. Then, it is your responsibility to clearly communicate those to others, whether it is via initial meetings with new clients, in your email signature or through your actions as you respond to emails at regular intervals each workday.

Do you find email time-consuming? If so, which of these tactics will you implement to better control your email?

Top 10 Ways To Make Email a Better Productivity Tool

Did you know that the average business professional gets at least 150 new emails each workday? I have clients that can easily reach 300 or 400 new emails on any given day, and many of them feel strongly that handling email is a very time-consuming aspect of the workday... Wow! It can make you wonder how any real work gets done amidst simply reading all those messages.

While there are countless tools and techniques that'll help you use email to organize for success while getting more done in less time and quickly finding what you need, here are a few solutions I have found to offer the greatest results:

1. Shift your mentality from "checking" to "processing" your email so your email inbox is no longer a holding zone:

• Tasks taking less than 5 minutes should be done when the message is received while tasks taking longer should be added to your running to-do list
• Appointment requests should be moved to your calendar
• Reference emails should be quickly moved to personal folders
• Trash is not really junk and should be moved to the trash

2. If the average person needs anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes or more to really refocus after any distraction, don't make email a distraction; think of OHIO and "only handle it once" for each message, including reading and processing each email.

3. It is easier to quickly find what you need when you need it if you aren't searching through electronic clutter; therefore, there is no need to hold onto whatever is no longer accurate, applicable, useful or bringing you joy. Further, when determining what to save or delete, consider what can be easily located online later... There's no need to take up valuable space on your computer when you can easily find that information online whenever it is needed.

4. Send fewer emails to get fewer emails back. Although it sounds simple when stated like that, we are in a society trained to quickly shoot out an email when we need to tell or ask someone something. This can be excellent for having documentation of your communications; however, one simple phone call can element quite a bit of back-and-forth when the topic is more complex or when you need an answer to included questions.

5. Unsubscribe from eNewsletters you aren't reading; otherwise, consider culling subscriptions you maintain and stay up-to-date reading in a daily "roll-up" or "bundle" via Unroll.me.

6. Master the art of creating reference folders by having enough that each email to be kept has a home while limiting the number of folders so no one email could appropriately fit in multiple. If you struggle with where to file a message upon its receipt, how will you ever be able to locate it again later?

7. Utilize automated rules to sort email into folders... Highlight what needs time-sensitive attention by directing it into a folder designated to that particular sender or subject line topic. Cull together what can be attended to more conveniently on a later date and time, setting messages from that sender to bypass the inbox and go to a separate Personal Folder all their own.

8. Better employ all the features offered by your email management tool, like Delay Send, Send Again, Meeting Requests and renaming your received emails' subject lines.

9. If you have been emailing someone back and forth, each subsequent email contains all the content of the prior emails so keep only the most recent message in a conversation; in newer versions of Outlook, clear such clutter with the "clean-up" button on Outlook's home ribbon.

10. If an out-of-date email address keeps populating when you are trying to send a message, there are options for removing an erroneous email address. As you start typing in Outlook's "to" field, press the down arrow to highlight the erroneous address and, then, hit DELETE; in Mac Mail, populate the erroneous address in an new email message and, then, click the arrow on the far right to select "Remove from Previous Recipients". Problem solved!

I'm working on an eBook about how to "Use Email to Organize for Success and Get More Done in Less Time" and could use your input... What techniques have made it easier for you to management your email?