Does it feel like your email inbox is full every time you open it? You get so stressed from your email inbox you don’t know where to start? You think you have it together and then come back a day (or a few hours) later to another overwhelming feeling? You are not alone – check out these tips to get your email back in check.
Tip 1:
Use your school’s email system (do not forward your messages from your school system to your personal email account). Having your school email forwarded to your personal email means that emails from your professors will be mixed with notifications to pay your bills – this can be distracting. Keeping school email separate means that you can address your school emails when you have scheduled in time to devote to school!
Tip 2:
Before we talk about email management, let’s talk about how you receive notifications or how you check your email. Is your school email easily accessible on your phone? If so, consider removing it and only looking at email on your laptop or tablet (whatever device you do your homework) – this will keep it compartmentalized into your “school” time and keep you more focused in general.
Tip 3:
Schedule your email time – don’t let email control you. How do you do that?
Decide on a set time of day to check email (twice daily is a good benchmark – some people will do three times a day) – create that schedule and stick to it. Each time you sit down for email, set a timer for 30-60 minutes. Prioritize certain people (professors from your current classes, advisors, etc). Prioritize certain situations (due date reminder for an assignment or registration reminder). Once you get through all your important emails (and you run out of time on your timer), let them sit until the next time you check your email. If you get more emails than this time allows, block out a half-day block once a week (or every other week) to clear out your email folders.
EXTRA TIP: If you decide to check email in the morning – do it AFTER you have done one meaningful (and/or productive) activity. Email turns into a mental load on your system and can scatter your brain in many directions. If you do a meaningful, important task before your email, you will have more focus on that task.
Of course this doesn’t mean you cannot use your email at other times, it just means that if you go into your email to send a message, you don’t get too distracted by what is in there, since you will definitely get to it soon.
Tip 4:
Tips 1,2, and 3 sound hard? Here are some “rules” you can use to efficiently control your email.
- Set-up some email filters and send some of your email to folders or pin emails from certain people or with certain subject to the top of your email thread – anything to reduce the distractions. For example, I tend to email myself links to interesting things from online that I want to look at later – I always use the same subject start (“note to self:”) and I filter these to their own folder. When I am looking for a link that I saved, I can go directly to that folder. I filter emails from my boss to the top of my email folder so that I can address them first when I open my email inbox.
- Set-up a few rules for yourself. Categorize who (and what) you need to respond to urgently – your boss, friends/family with an emergency, etc.
Tip 5:
Challenge yourself to only look at each email once. How do you do that? As soon as you open and read each email, decide what you are going to do with it:
- Delete it! So many emails can be deleted right away – if you are worried about deleting too many emails, make sure the settings on your email system archives your deleted messages – this will make it easy to retrieve that message at some point if you want it.
- Reply to it! Send out a quick reply (quick = less than 2 minutes) – if an email needs a longer reply, consider a phone call to that person later.
- Defer/forward it: Delegate the task required to someone. Forward the message to someone and include specific instructions about why you are sending it to them and what they should do with it.
- Keep it: This is the last resort, but it is for emails that you cannot reply to without more information or the email reply needs some work from you. Use your email system’s reminder tool to make this message show up at a later date as a reminder.