Time-Saving Email Tips

Technology can be an amazing thing. With it, we can telecommute from almost anyplace in the world and connect our lives in ways we never imagined. However, it can also be a burden to us, especially when it comes to emails.

Each day we receive a ton of email, only some of which we actually want. Spam filters work fine, getting rid of most of our unwanted mail, but a small portion still manages to get through, only adding to the numerous legitimate emails we have to go through.

We can literally waste hours of our life just sorting and reading our emails, only to discover we have no time left for our actual work. With that in mind, here are a few tips for handling those rogue spam emails and regaining lost time.

The first thing to keep in mind is that most emails just aren't that important or urgent. You don't have to read every single email message you receive right away, even though you may feel otherwise. Most of the time, the world will not collapse if you let it go for at least a few hours. If it was a true emergency, chances are whoever is trying to contact you would use the phone or some other immediate form of communication.

Some people have their computers configured to play an alert or other sound when an email arrives in their inbox. You really don't need this kind of distraction, so you may as well disable it; it'll only draw your attention away from what you're doing and break your cadence.

Also, think about the dozens of online newsletters you've subscribed to. How many do you read a regular basis? Keep those, but consider unsubscribing to the others. It will free up some spare time for you, and get rid of extra clutter in your mailbox.

While you can ignore your emails for most of the day, you should set aside a little time every day just to scan through them (you can do it more often if you think your inbox requires it, but for most people one time daily should be enough.) E-digests of trade journals should be saved for this time, so you may want to schedule it closer towards the evening. Otherwise you can easily become so engrossed you lose track of time and wind up back where you started.

One last idea: try to get the most you can from your email filters. Create different folders according to sender or subject, and make sure each new email is sent to the designated folder when it arrives. It's easiest to do this through "labels", but most common email hosts will have something similar.