Today, we are constantly being overwhelmed by the amount of information and volume of email we receive each day. Trying to keep up is hard work and stressful.

Do you constantly check your email Inbox throughout the day?

Are you tempted to stop and read a new email every time an alert notification pops up?

Emails can be a great source of time wasting and provide a constant distraction throughout the day. If you’re going to make the most of your day then one way surefire way to increase your productivity is to spend less time reacting to them. Limit the amount of time you spend in your Inbox and you’ll find you use your time far more effectively.

Here are a few ways to reduce your email overwhelm.

Frequency

Only check your Inbox once or twice a day. This can seem uncomfortable and controversial, especially if you check your Inbox several times a day. Check it once in the morning and again in the afternoon. You’ll stay far more focused for the rest of the day. Don’t jump straight in and start responding right away. When you check them, take a few minutes to sort them into:

• Action required
• Information
• Reading
• Filing.

Switch off notifications. Stop all those alerts, pings and pop-ups so you aren’t constantly distracted. If you’re expecting an urgent message you ‘may’ need to check more often but do it in your own time, not as a reaction to a notification.

Set aside time to deal with email. If you need to spend time responding to emails, set aside a specific amount of time to do that. Limit the amount of time you spend on them to 30 minutes at a time, unless it’s part of a specific task or action. Clear any current existing, action emails without getting distracted by new ones arriving. Leave those until next time. That way you’ll keep on top of your Inbox and won’t just focus on ‘new’ stuff coming in.

Organise your email

Use filters and rules. Organise incoming mail into different folders, based on filters and rules, depending on your email system. These can be based on the sender or subject so that email automatically gets moved into a specific folder and doesn’t clog up your inbox.

In the same way you can prioritise your email using flags or Category Inboxes, so that important or priority emails are easier to identify and deal with and less important, lower priority emails don’t clog up your inbox and distract you.

Manage any subscriptions. Only subscribe to mailing lists and newsletters you read/use on a regular basis. Go through once a year or every few months and clear out and unsubscribe from any you no longer read. Many sites, including mine, will archive past newsletters, so you can probably find them if you need them. If you use a filter or rule to organise your Inbox, you can quickly scan through and ‘prune’ the relevant folder(s).

As emails land in your Inbox, ask yourself, is this information still useful? Do I need to read it? Does it deserve space in my Inbox.

Use several email addresses. Different ones for different purposes?

• Business only – although you may have several addresses under one business/website address eg. admin@, enquiries@, accounts@ etc.
• Personal – family, social, friends.
• Newsletter or subscriptions only, so they don’t clog up your Inbox.
• Junk – a ‘catchall’ address for when you need to provide an email address but you’ll probably never look at or need anything else from that site or to avoid spam.

This might sound more complicated but it helps with the sorting process. Set up your main email account to pick up multiple addresses or redirect them. Check the important ones regularly and the less important ones, less often. For instance I use gmail, hotmail (x2) and yahoo addresses for different purposes.

Let it Go!

Once an email has been read and actioned, delete it or if you need to, file it in an appropriate folder. Try to keep your Inbox as clear as possible so it’s easier to see what’s new.

One thing I found helped and stopped me suffering from FOMO and feeling I HAD to read every one, was trusting that the right information will appear at the right moment, when I need it.

And of course … there’s always Google. If you ever need some information an online search is pretty sure to find the information you need without having to search through thousands of emails for something you kept from three years ago.

Other email related posts:

Get Productive: Writing effective emails

Get Productive: Email Do’s and Don’ts

Manage your email while on holiday