Conquer Your Inbox With These Email Tips and Tricks
Do you ever feel like you’ll never see the end of your inbox? Or do you spend more time sending emails about your job than you do, well – actually doing it?
Conquer Your Inbox With These Email Tips and Tricks
Emails are essential for any form of professional communication, but we often end up losing our day to them; especially if, like us, you spend at least twenty minutes wondering how someone had the sheer audacity to take the ‘Kind’ out of ‘Kind Regards’ (it’s too far.)
If you’re looking to streamline your time, we’ve pulled together these tricks and tips to help you along your way. You’ll be an email whizz in no time. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Copy + paste.
Well, sort of.
We often end up sending the same emails over and over again. Whether it’s similar queries, summarising meetings, or explaining your business to prospective clients, chances are, you’ve sent it all before. Consider creating email templates. Type out the bulk of a generic email, and save it as a template – you can learn to do that here.
Next time you need to send the same email, it’s there – ready and waiting. Just fill in the blanks, change up a few words, and you’re done!
Scheduled sending.
Do you work with colleagues or clients from different time zones? Or do you aim to reply ‘later,’ only to forget? (We’ve all been there.) Why not delay, or schedule your emails?
Scheduling allows you to bulk reply, but stagger the times they are sent, avoiding another sudden rush in your inbox. It also allows you to plan in advance, scheduling important emails later in the week when life might be a little busier.
You can learn to schedule here, or here if you’re using a Mac.
What Time is It?
Email time.
We all work to some sort of schedule, and whether it’s Tuesday afternoon admin, or Monday morning existential dread, it’s helpful to know what to expect. Emails, however? Well, that’s a different story. Instead of hurriedly replying whenever you get a minute, why not try setting dedicated email time?
Give yourself a specific time every day to go through your emails, and make note of it in your email signature. Everyone, including you, will know where they stand when it comes to contacting you, which should make life a little easier. You could even use that fancy email scheduling we told you about above.
Ditch them.
Although not completely.
How many emails have you sent or received that could have been a 5-second message? Or worse, a clarification of something painfully simple? Whilst instant messaging over social media platforms definitely blurs the line between work and play, there are plenty of professional options out there.
Messaging apps like Slack are specifically designed for professional chat – even including the option to add separate channels for any pet pics or office-based banter. And, when it comes to clearing things up, why not use project planners like Asana or Trello?
They ensure everyone is up to date, and save us all from lengthy email chains. Phew.
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