Be Master of Your Inbox

You may be interested to know that my work as a productivity consultant doesn't lead me to teach folks how to do more faster, more faster, until you fall apart. My goal is to help folks identify the things that are profitable and to focus on those tasks as their highest priority, all the time striving to maintain a profitable level of function in each profitable area of activity. In other words, you can have too much of a good thing. Such is often the case with email.

How many times do you check email every day? How much time does it take? How much of your email in the office is official and how much is unofficial?

Since our purpose is true to the very basics of economics, which says that everyone works for an incentive, for example your company exists and works for monetary profit. Each worker works for financial incentives and other benefits.

My intention is to help you accomplish your required tasks with less time in the workplace, for a non cash benefit: More time for your personal interests....more time off the job. This will create an environment of increased motivation and better creativity. Bosses and supervisors will do well to use this incentive with employees whenever possible. It will benefit your work environment and, in time, your bottom line.

Now, to you, the reader, whether you are the owner, boss or worker, you should get your email habits under control because that action will reclaim much wasted (unprofitable) time and permit you to finish your day's work sooner, without cheating your email duties and without working faster and faster.

The solution is simple. First take stock of how many times a day you check email, and how many minutes each time you check it. This will vary, so just add up all the minutes you spend handling email on a random day...and note how many times you went to your inbox. After trying my suggestions below, measure again and compare.

For the next day, set a special time and promise yourself that you will check email only two times, at times you decide on before you leave the office today. Twice a day. This will work for most people. If you must have hyper responsive email for customer service, you can set up an autoresponder to respond to each customer with a form letter for you, or you can automatically outsource and forward those emails to someone who can answer 95% of them for you, from a list you provide.

Do whatever it takes, but reduce your email checking to twice daily, with a view towards once a day after about 30 days on the two times a day schedule. If you find it necessary, you can send all your contacts a short email explaining that in order to give better service you will be answering email twice a day and give the hour that you schedule that for. Then they will know that if they get an email to you before your 11:00 check, they will get an answer very quickly. Also, they will know that if they miss the 11:00 check, they will get a response between 3:00 and 4:00 P.M.

Get yourself mentally ready before you go to your inbox. Determine that you will aggressively delete any obvious spam on sight, before you get tempted and distracted. Then, open each message thatis work related and either answer it or flag it for special action. Make every effort to respond to each one as you open them, however, you may have to put some in the pending mode, if research is required. If you have help, you may want to have a helper find out why Mrs. Allen's order was not packed properly and send her an apologetic response and a refund, for instance. Emails that are personal should be left unopened until all your work is done for the day. I use separate email addresses for different categories of correspondence and open each inbox only at its appropriate time.

I know this sounds rigid. That's because it is serious business. If you are among the majority of who just float along whichever way the current flows, you don't know where you'll end up. If, however, you are among those who want to rise to the top ahead of your peers, this kind of personal management of your work habits, with a view towards productivity will enable you to set a direct course to a definite destination, and will make it possible for you to arrive successfully. You can do it. I know you can. You just need to decide to navigate towards success, and then take the first step. The next step, and the next after that will be more natural.

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Get more information and more free tips on how you can accomplish more in less time by visiting Sergeant Carpenter's site for effective business managing You can also sign up for a free consultation at his site.

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