The Secret for Managing Email More Efficiently

Years ago, I made some significant changes to how I handle hundreds of email messages each day. These changes dramatically decreased the amount of time I spent processing email. You can read about my experience here.

Then I heard Mark Miller speak about how he had learned to manage his email with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. He had learned a secret that I had not considered.

This post is part of the series – Get Your Life Back!
Take Control of Your Schedule
4 Tips for Managing Your Calendar More Effectively
Plan Your Year with Your Annual Plan
Create Your Best Week
You Can Keep Up With Your Email
The Secret for Managing Email More Efficiently

Mark’s secret for managing email was…

…to not manage it! Get someone else to manage it. So I began allowing my assistant to manage my email for me.

I don’t have one

Now before I lose you with the whole I don’t have an assistant thing, check out these recent articles which include some great ideas…

• • How to delegate if you don’t have staff
  • 7 Reasons you should hire a virtual assistant

• How to Hire An Awesome Virtual Assistant

If you don’t have an assistant, you can get one. There are many ways to do this now. Consider setting up a simple internship for a student at your local community college. Advertise for a volunteer – many businesses and non-profits have volunteer staff. Consider a Virtual Assistant – this concept has proven to be very effective for many leaders.

Not all that important

The truth is, someone other than you can handle 70-80% of your email. That’s right – you and I aren’t all that needed.

So I created a plan for managing my email more efficiently:

1. In my inbox, I set up a folder for my assistant to review incoming email. I used a series of rules to move incoming messages into her folder. Michael Hyatt has written a great post in which he details how he automated this process using rules – you can read it here. I basically followed his recommendations and customized it to work for me.

2. As my assistant reviews each item, she does one of three things with it:

a. Discard it. Everything that is not personally addressed to me is deleted. Items that I am CCd on are reviewed to determine if I need to handle them. Otherwise they are deleted.

b. Delegate it. Since I lead a department, I regularly receive messages that require the services of someone on my team. Each message is reviewed and forwarded to the individual responsible for the task or function.

c. Prioritize it. This is a tip I learned from Mark. My assistant prioritizes the remaining 20% of the messages in one of two folders for me to review:

1. Red – I review the red folder every day. I began by scheduling 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon to process email. Once my assistant and I were comfortable with the system I was able to reduce the amount of time.

2. Yellow – I review once a week. My assistant also reviews the yellow folder regularly to determine if anything needs to be moved up to the red folder.

My Part

The last step is mine…

d. Do something with it. When I go to the two folders, I handle the items in one of two ways (these are tips from Michael Hyatt that I have modified slightly to work for me):

1. 1. Items that require less than 5 minutes, I handle them right away. I found that putting them off required me to think about them over and over and ultimately wasted far more time than the action required. So I just handle the quick items – and get them out of the way. I’ve noticed that finishing the simpler items gives me more energy and momentum.
   2. For projects that require more than 5 minutes, I schedule time on my calendar to handle them. You can read more about this in my posts about how to manage your calendar and schedule more effectively.

I eventually delegated all of my email processing to my assistant. I realized that I simply did not need to process most of my email myself. If you will give it time to work, it will save you 6-8 hours a week – or more!

To help save you time and trouble, I’ve written a simple, step-by-step guide for managing your inbox more effectively. Click here to download my simple, step-by-step Guide for Handling Email More Efficiently.

Question: What other ideas have you learned for handling your email more efficiently? (besides deleting the entire inbox) Share your ideas in the comments below.