How can I manage my emails better?
Why are my emails a Problem?
Our businesses can get so busy so quickly. Nothing shows this as much as the increase in the amount of emails you will have to deal with each day. Typically I will get around 100 to 120 emails each day requiring my attention. It can be overwhelming and scary. All you want to do is to get on and do your work, but now on top of that we now have this list of problems that need to be sorted.
It can be addictive to spend all day in front of emails
It doesn’t help that it is so easy to write and hit the send button. It leads to addictive and compulsive behaviour. I want to have an empty inbox, it means to me that I am on top of my work, that there is nothing needing my attention. I reach this state of inner peace and then straight away my perfect inbox is spoilt and I get an email that I have to deal with and the cycle begins again.
Monday is the worst day for this. It’s the total of emails from Friday afternoon through to Monday morning. I used to dread starting work on Monday because of this, I would only manage to deal with these emails on Monday I wouldn’t get any work done.
You need a system to keep on top of them
Things have got better over the last 12 months, I have a system that works and I have more time to do my work and more time to enjoy my free time.
The system for dealing with my emails should mean that I can deal with them quickly to make sure that I can ask my team to deal with any emails for work that they are doing and that I can see the emails that require my attention.
What do I want?
I don’t want to spend all day doing my emails. I want to get through them in about half and hour to an hour. I want to make sure that our clients get their queries answered quickly and that we can get on to help them. I want them dealt with the day that we receive them or at least send them a reply that we are dealing with their query.
It has to work for me and our clients. I have my perfect inbox and the client has a quick solution to their problem.
I want to get my team involved in dealing with emails
I also want to get my team involved in doing this. Dealing with queries from clients is an important part of their development. They learn by having to resolve problems of course we will support them. We have a system where we allocate clients to a member of staff to look after. Having them deal with the queries helps them build the bond and trust with the client.
They can take satisfaction knowing that their clients are happy.
One of the strategies that I have adapted to dealing with my emails is to forward them to staff if they are dealing with their work. If we receive a query about a set of accounts, I will forward to the accountant dealing with the work for them to look at and we can discuss in one of our weekly huddles.
The same is done if they are cc’d into an email. They deal with the query or it is raised in one of the huddles that we have.
You need to break the habit to move forward
Dealing with emails is addictive behaviour. You need to break the habit. Having times that you deal with the emails is something that you need to do. You need to set a timetable in your diary. Time that you will deal with emails, time that you are available to speak with clients, time that you will be available for your team to support them and time to do your own work.
This is again something that I have done as well. When I start in a morning, I sort through my email’s straightaway. I want to be able to deal with any queries that we have had overnight and make sure that any queries are dealt with by me or my staff.
Scheduling time is important
Once that is done I normally make sure that I spend time and get all my work finished. If that is signing off accounts, or finalising them for clients work or doing work for my business. Scheduling your time makes sure that nothing gets forgotten.
As a business owner you will need to make sure that you don’t take your eye off the ball for anything, if you do it will start to affect the business. The only way to manage this is to schedule your time to make sure that you can do everything.
You need to be able to switch off after work
You need to have discipline to do this. It is better to just remove the temptation away from yourself. One of the best decisions that I have made is to have two mobile phones a work and a personal phone. When it comes to the end of the day I can switch the work phone off and I can use the personal phone.
Keeping any business apps off the personal phone is also something that I do. I know if they were on the phone I would still keep checking them when I am finished working. Taking the temptation away to enjoy your free time is something that has been very useful and something that I would highly recommend.
What changes can you make to make it easier?
Put the phone down and switch it off and don’t check it again until you start work.
There are a number of other apps that can help you if you are really struggling with this problem. Apps like Boomerang will help you schedule time away form your email. It will only deliver emails to your inbox during the times that you set aside. This could be the times that you are scheduled to work on your emails. It can also schedule the times that emails are actually sent.
You need to ask your team to help you get on top of your emails. Passing on the emails to your staff to deal with is something that can be done quite easily. It is quick to do in the morning and you can make sure that anything that really needs your attention that you deal with.
Use Teams or Slack for internal messages
One of the changes that we made was to use Teams for internal messages rather than email. It meant that I can close down the email for parts of the day but if my employees need me I am available to help on Teams. Its also helped to increase morale, we have a bit of fun with the emojis and helps to relieve some of the stress of working.
Do you want someone to manage your emails for you?
We have tried to adapt a shared mailbox for our company, that for us really did not work. The temptation is that nobody deals with the emails in there. We found it better to have a point of contact where someone would pass the emails around the team for them to deal with.
Asking a team member to manage your email inbox and emails may also be an option if you have a personal assistant or a full-time admin staff. They would need to know what emails that you need to see and what can be passed on to your team.
You need a plan and you need to stick with it
Having a plan on how you will deal with the email overload is essential. Get help from your team, schedule your time to deal with the emails and when you finish work switch off the phone and don’t check the emails after work.
Don’t suffer in silence get help form your team and act to reduce the time spent dealing with your emails.
If you are having problems managing your emails or any other problems please book a call and we can discuss how we can help you further.