I recently did some research on how much time was wasted going through our emails every day. Turns out that email is, in fact, suspect to us losing upwards of 8 hours of otherwise productive time per month. That’s a problem – not least because over time, we are embracing and consuming more data, and consequentially, more email. We have to start finding solutions to our email overload somewhere.
Enter 2013. A new year, and a new opportunity to adopt a manageable email strategy for the foreseeable future. I believe, like many, that the email overload challenges we face today are complex problems resulting from a decade of rapid increase in information access. As a greater amount of “interesting and engaging” content becomes available, we seize the opportunity to read and archive all of it, often at a cost to our overall daily productivity. There will need to be broader solutions to the problem that will only be solved by advances in artificial intelligence and software. In the meantime, I’ve begun taking some common sense steps to reduce email overload and increase my overall productivity.
Deleting unnecessary emails
Taking the most obvious step towards reducing email overload, I began deleting any emails that weren’t considered necessary for the growth and survival of my business and professional brand. These included daily digests from websites, non-critical notification emails, and recommended content emails, among others.
Some notes: critical notification emails should remain – they’re important. Don’t worry about missing out on useful content from your favorite websites – instead of relying on an email digest, bookmark the site and browse it periodically for content. Recommended content is great, but you feel obligated to view it immediately – that distracts you.
Pass the relevancy test: are old emails still important?
I had emails in my inbox from last November. Emails sent then by brands, advertising or otherwise, should immediately be deleted – they’re no longer relevant, and distracting. Daily digests, newsletters, and recommended content emails that are more than a month old are irrelevant, too. I deleted, and watched in awe, as dozens of unnecessary emails that once seemed urgent disappeared from my inbox.
Old conversations – are they necessary?
As I browsed through my inbox, I came across a handful of conversations between my team and people or companies we no longer communicated with. That list included clients, prospects, vendors, and acquaintances of the past. It made perfect sense to delete most of those emails, as they were no longer relevant to the big picture: growing my business or professional brand. Worried that you won’t be able to reach them in the future? Don’t be – if there’s anything important to be said, they’ll reach out to you first. Instead, relax and enjoy the fact that your overcrowded inbox continues to shrink in size.
Of course, there were some older emails that deserved to be part of my inbox – receipts, login/user information, and vital correspondence that affects the client-agency relationship are all important emails that shouldn’t be deleted. But you’ll find that the vast majority of older emails are no longer necessary.
Important conversations that got ignored
It happens to everyone – sometimes, important conversations that should have been answered fell through the cracks and went ignored. Have they been sitting in your inbox for six months collecting dust? Time to delete them, as they’re not considered so important anymore.
Don’t spend hours beating yourself up over a missed opportunity for a timely response. Regularly practicing the email management tips highlighting throughout this blog post will decrease the chances that important emails are ignored in the future.
You don’t have to keep all correspondence
I had email correspondence between clients, vendors, friends, and others from almost three years ago in my inbox. It’s time to delete non-necessary correspondence, and make room in your inbox. As a general rule, if emails were exchanged more than a year ago, it’s okay to delete the correspondence. Some exceptions include important legal and compliance correspondence, or information that is critical to the client-agency relationship.