Tips for using email more effectively
Email is full of other people’s priorities and can be a total time waster if you let it.
It’s generally full of things other people want you to do for them, which can side track you from your own priorities.
As someone who is running a business that has thousands of students in it - I get A LOT of emails. I would estimate around 100 or more each day. And these are all emails that need to be responded to in some way, not things that can just be deleted or filed away.
These emails might be from people inquiring about my courses, students who need help, notifications about new students in my courses (that have actions that are associated with them) or just emails from other people who I collaborate or work with to keep my business operating.
In order to not let email take over my life I have had to put in some strict rules around it and also some tips and tricks that make it quicker and easier for me to process it.
I am the sort of person who likes to get to 'inbox zero' at the end of each day otherwise I start to feel a bit stressed out. So I do like to stay on top of it as best I can.
Here are some of the things that I do that help me to manage email, without letting it side track me from other important work.
1: Email processing periods
I have three specific times in the day that I check and process my emails. For the remainder of the day I try and stay away from it as much as I can so I can concentrate on other things I need to get done.
Here are my processing times:
Daily Non-Negotiables period:
Every day I have a list of ‘daily non-negotiables’ that I work through. Included in this list is checking my email.
My daily non-negotiables are normally scheduled in my diary to complete after I’ve done at least one working sprint for the day. This means that before I check any email I have done a strategic task of my to-do list and moved my business and my own personal priorities forward first.
This is when I process the bulk of my emails for the day and I normally get through most of my emails during this period (see my tips for how below!).
Mid-afternoon: When the boys get back from school and are having afternoon tea or working on their homework I take a bit of time to do another check of my emails. I'm usually a bit tired by this point and because the boys are home I get distracted easily, so email is a good task as it doesn't require much creativity or brain power.
Just before bed: I do one final sweep of my email just before I go upstairs to bed each night. I answer any emails that have come in during the afternoon and try to end the day with the inbox as empty as I can.
2: Email templates
I use Gmail as my email provider and within Gmail there is the option to create template responses for your emails.
This is something I've been doing for over a year now and it's been MASSIVE for helping me get through large volumes of emails in a short amount of time. I get a lot of emails that have the same questions in them - mostly from people who ask questions about the different courses that I offer. So I have created template answers to all the most commonly asked questions that I get.
When an email comes in I can then select and customise a template according to the question that has been asked. This means that for some emails that might have taken me 5 minutes to type in the past, now only take me 30 seconds to respond to. You can see how this would start to add up as a massive time saver over hundreds of emails.
If you want more info on this then check out my YouTube video where I walk you through it HERE
3: Keep things organised
My husband makes fun of me for this as Gmail does have an excellent search feature which means technically you should be able to find any email just by searching with a few keywords.
But I'm not really the sort of person to just archive everything in one bulk area so I have heaps of folders that I archive my emails in to so I know where to go and look for them if I need them. I like how organised my email system is and I can find things really quickly if I ever need to. As I respond to each email I always archive it to the correct folder. That is my way of knowing that it has been dealt with.
Anything that is left in my Inbox means it still needs to be answered or actioned in some way.
4: Unsubscribe as you go
If an email comes in that I have subscribed to but no longer want to read (or for those pesky emails that you get where you are sent things without even subscribing) I always make sure I take the extra minute or so to unsubscribe from those as I am processing my email.
This takes time out of my day but it means I won't have to deal with that sort of email again down the track when it comes in.
I used to just delete things like this and not worry about them, but I'm taking much more care to actually clear out my subscriptions these days.
5: Use filters and labels
I use filters and labels in my email to help me automate some of the email management process.
For example, I create a filter that automatically labels and archives certain types of emails, such as newsletters or promotional emails, so they don't clutter my inbox. I then set a specific time each week to go through them and read them (often a Friday morning while I’m drinking my tea).
But you can also use labels to organise your emails based on their content sender or priority. This way, you can quickly find and process specific emails without having to search through your entire inbox.
6: Delegate
I don’t have a team, but if you do you can perhaps delegate some of your email tasks to them. This can include handling customer inquiries, managing scheduling or even just sorting through your emails and forwarding the most important ones to you.
By delegating some of your email load you can focus on more critical tasks while still knowing the customer inquiries and support are still being handled.
7: Set expectations and boundaries
Finally, make sure you set expectations and boundaries with clients regarding your email response time. Make it clear that you won't be able to respond immediately to every email and that they should expect a response within a certain timeframe (e.g. 24 hours would be reasonable for paying clients).
This can all be outlined in your Client Welcome Pack, which will set expectations from the start with clients.
I hope some of these tips have given you some ideas for how to stay on top of email.
Enjoy the rest of your day!
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
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