| As many participants have learned from my Time Management/Organization Skills workshop the three reason’s that paper piles collect on the desk top is: 1. Fear Factor (afraid to put the information away) 2. No Home (designated storage locations) and 3. No System (to locate information).
The same logic can be applied to managing e-mails. Leave at the end of the day with the e-mail In-box empty.
During my office coaching sessions I find an average of 150 e-mails stored in the in-box. An electronic pile similar to paper piles on the desk can impact a person’s daily productivity.
To assist you in managing e-mail communication consider the following:
1. Create two folders in Outlook named A Priority e-mails and B Priority e-mails.
2. Drag/drop e-mails that must be dealt with within 24 hours into the A Priority folder and drag/ drop all others into the B Priority folder.
3. Create other Outlook folders by subject name that identify to your projects or communication groups.
Try to deal with e-mails in the A Priority folder within 24 hours and once a week review the B Priority folder, most of these e-mails can be deleted because you don’t need them or can be stored in a home.
After you drag/drop an e-mail, go to your To-Do Task List in Outlook or your Day Plan Tool in your Personal Organizer and time activate your action on the e-mail. Use the same communication coding process for folder locations that you learned with the paper system.
You can now leave at the end of the day with a clean desk and a clean Outlook in-box because the fear is gone, you have storage homes and you have a system to locate information.
Less stress the next day and you are more productive.
One of my recent clients had over 2,000 e-mails in the in-box and is now down to 28.
Thanks
Ken Lewis Coach
kelewis@kelp.com
www.kelp.com
K.E.L. Management Facilitation
260-672-2028, 800-886-2174, F 260-672-3677,
Learn to do more with less
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