Business Strategies: 4 Tips to Organize your Email
Inbox
© Kristie Rimmele
One
of the biggest distractions for most business owners is
email. And when you get hundreds (or even thousands) of
emails a day, it's really easy for it to quickly overwhelm
you. Just as it's hard to concentrate in a messy office,
a messy inbox can send you running in a hundred different
directions if you are not careful. Here are some power tips
to organize your inbox and help you stay focused.
1)
Create categories in your inbox.
- !
Inbox
- ! Act Now (items I need to do in the next 5 minutes)
- ! Do (items I should do today)
- ! Waiting for Reply
- ! Quick Reference
- ! Ideas
- ! News to Read
- ! Delegate
How
to create categories in your inbox
- Right
click on any email in your inbox
- Click categories
- Click master category list
- Type the name of the new category you wish to create
- Hit add
- Hit ok
- H ok
Note:
If you put an exclamation point before the category name,
it helps group your important categories at the top of your
category box.
Now,
whenever an email hits your inbox, you must drop it into
a category. This helps you because everything that requires
the same type of action is in a "bucket" in your
inbox now.
To
assign an email to a category, right click on the email,
right click categories, find the category you want to assign
it to, and put an x in that box
2) Use tasks to group your "to do" items
Items that I will do in the next few days, weeks, or months
ahead, you can move to your task folder.
If
you customize the current view to group it by high, normal,
and low priority it helps you instantly identify which items
need your attention first. It follows the Franklin Covey
model of thinking of identifying tasks as a A, B, or C.
Here's
how to group your tasks by priority.
- Right
click
- Customize
current view
- Group
items by - choose priority
- Descending
- OK
3)
As you read your emails, click and edit the subject line so
it says the action you need to take. For
example, when a person emails me with a question, I would
edit the subject line of that email to say, "Find out
when Janice's order was shipped). That way I don't even have
to open the email to have an instant reminder about what action
I need to take.
4)
Personal Folders help organize your "keeper" emails.
Here are personal file folders to consider.
- Sunshine
File - testimonials and "you are wonderful"
notes - this is great pick me up file to look at when
you get discouraged
- Clients
- Company 1 - your consulting company
- Company 2 - your online community etc
- Products – your book, ebooks, etc can each have
a subfolder in here
- Speaking
- Affiliate - your affiliate logins, notes etc
- Reference (this is where you can file all the "how
to" tips etc I come across)
- Marketing blurbs (article bylines, product descriptions,
professional bio, text ads)
- Vendors - vendor receipts, passwords
- Documentation - any documentation on "how to"
that you create for clients or VA's or people you outsource
to. That way you never have to rethink it. Send click
and send.
Organize your Inbox Today!
That’s it, 4 quick tips to conquer the pile of emails
in your inbox so you can get more work done!
Article
by: Kristie Rimmele,
is the author of "I Love My Life: A Mom's Guide
to Working from Home"! Thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs
have used her step-by-step home business system to earn
money working from home. Get a free ecourse Home
Business Success Secrets at http://www.Webmomz.com
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