Checking emails takes somewhat more than five hours per day for most people, statistics says. People seem to be obsessed with incoming messages throughout the day, not shunning them even when behind the wheel. Not good!
Email may be the primary means of communication for the majority, but that doesn’t mean that it needs to take place at all times. Let’s put it this way: do you communicate with your significant other 24/7? We thought so.
Just like any other daily activity, checking emails should be done at designated intervals. For most people, once in the morning and once in the evening does the trick. If you make an effort to limit the time spent checking new messages, you will soon discover that you have more time to spend on other (more pleasurable) activities.
A Word on Email Etiquette
Email etiquette is considered nice manners in the virtual world of today (okay, perhaps not entirely virtual, but we are definitely getting there). Although no guidelines are set in stone, some behavioral patterns are still more welcome than others.
Firstly, treat sending emails like phone calls. You wouldn’t call your friend in the middle of the night, right? Similarly, it has been statistically proven that emails arriving outside of working hours for private users and during the working hours for business users are more welcome than messages arriving at other times of the day. Emails incoming in the middle of the night are highly unlikely to be addressed promptly.
Further out, when composing messages, make them short and concise. The same applies to subject lines, which so happen to be the single factor to determine whether the recipient will open the message. Pay particular attention when handling forwarded messages. Subject lines should always be rewritten, in such a way as to give the recipient an exact idea of what to expect from the contents.
Add a rule or two of your own to make your “cohabitation” with incoming emails a pleasurable experience, and you will see efficiency improving in a matter of days. Stay organized and concentrated at all times — it is not only possible, but also easy to perform!
Dealing With Incoming Email Efficiently
Let’s face it: we live hectic lives no matter how hard we try to ease things up — it’s the harsh reality of our times. If we add the time spent on checking and responding to emails, we are left with the fact that we waste a couple of hours of our precious time every day on tasks that can be easily optimized.
That’s right — addressing emails doesn’t have to be arduous, nor does it need to interfere with our leisure time. As a matter of fact, a couple of simple and easily manageable guidelines will help you deal with all new messages in considerably less time.
- Turn Off Email Notifications
As horrendous as it may sound, this simple tip actually makes all the difference in the world. Not all incoming messages are important or urgent; in actual fact, most of them comprise social media notifications, newsletters, marketing offers and forwarded messages. Do these really need to be addressed immediately? Absolutely not!
- Check New Messages Twice a Day
Of course, some messages are welcome and potentially beneficial, and are, as such, not to be missed. If you make use of email rules, the time you spend checking new emails will become as pleasurable as it gets.
Designate two time slots when to check new messages, optimally once in the morning and once before going to bed. During those sessions, address ALL incoming messages so that the next time you check, you will see only new emails that arrived in between.
Limit the time for addressing emails. The interval depends on the volume of emails you normally receive per day, so there is no general recommendation, but make certain not to spend more than two hours on this task. A simple calculation should tell you that is four hours per day, which is a generous amount of time that you could otherwise spend leisurely.
- Use Blacklists, Whitelists, Folders and Labels
To both increase the visibility of emails and optimize the time spent on addressing them, it is recommended to use blacklists and whitelists. For this the best client to use is Mailbird. As regards to the first, don’t make the common mistake of forgetting that some unwanted messages can stop cluttering your inbox by simple unsubscriptions. Whitelists will help your email client sort the emails in the best possible way, while labels and folders will do the rest.
Live Your Life to the Fullest!
Who would want to spend five hours a day browsing through electronic messages when we have insufficient time to enjoy ourselves as it is? That’s right — nobody! Simply follow these easy guidelines to start managing your everyday life with confidence and ease, while never missing a single important electronic message.
