Unsubscribe and Clear Out Your Email Inbox

 

In todays world of technology and everyone being connected 24/7 - it can get a bit overwhelming with the hundreds of emails that can appear in your Inbox everyday.

Whether it's your business account or your personal account - sometimes it seems like the emails just won't stop coming! Keeping up with email is a never ending challenge. 

A lot of people like to enter contests so that they can win money or houses or all kinds of great prizes. Some people sign up to receive email from various Blogs. Some people sign up to receive notices from stores about new merchandise or sales. It all adds up to getting inundated with emails and special offers.

And once you sign up for one thing - it seems to multiple the amount of emails you get.

The take away for all of this is - "be careful what you sign up for".  If you just "have to" enter all of these contests and get on store mailing lists - maybe consider creating an email account specifically for that purpose. This will help separate out the "junk / store email list" emails - from personal emails.

If you are not interested in those contests / stores / Blogs - anymore - unsubscribe from their list.

Make it a habit to delete your emails after you have read them or dealt with them.

If you have hundreds (or thousands) of emails in your Inbox - try to set aside a 10 miinutes a day and delete as many emails as you can. Or set up a certain number of emails to delete each day - for example - "deleting 20 emails a day". It can be overwhelming to think about your hundreds (or thousands) of emails - but if you delete a few each day - your Inbox will be a lot less overwhelming.

And after you are done with that.....don't forget to delete the emails in your "Sent" box also!

Less Clutter = Less Stress ^SM     in your home, your business and your life

Organizational Consulting Services

http://www.organizationalconsultingservices.com
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Managing Your Emails So They Do Not Get the Best of Your Time

Email is great, and saves a lot of time. You no longer have to wait three or more days for someone to get a message from you. You can use it to be more organized, set tasks, and more. But, email can also get out of control and suck up a lot of time if you’re not organized.

* Use Rules, Filters, Labels and Folders – Remember that simple is better than complicated so don’t go too crazy with these, but do create labels and/or rules and filter to help you organize your mail better.

* Read Emails and Act Immediately – When you open an email, take care of it immediately. Read it, then act. If it requires nothing, delete it; if it has something interesting you want to note, use a note-taking program to save it. If it has a task, copy and paste into your to-do list and calendar.

* Set Specific Times for Checking Your Email – Don’t keep your email notifications on all day long so that you’re constantly dealing with email. Instead, choose specific times during the day to check email, at the very least first thing in the morning, after lunch, and about an hour before the close of business. Let your people know your schedule.

* Create Separate Email Addresses – The great thing about email addresses is in most cases you’re not limited to how many you can have. Don’t go nuts, but do create a separate email for unimportant information such as business that requires an email sign-up to view information, or non-relevant newsletters. Separate customer service addresses are good too.

* Be Free with the Delete Key – It’s tempting to save all those cool newsletters with great points and things to learn, but the truth is, you’re not likely to ever read them again. Use your note-taking tool to keep the most important points, and then delete.

* Create a Swipe File or Hot Keys with Automatic Replies – If you find yourself saying the same things over and over again, which is not uncommon, create a swipe file or hot keys that enable you to answer those questions again and again. Another way is to create a FAQ on your website and link to that specific answer.

* Keep Email Replies Short and Simple – You don’t want to write really long emails to anyone. If you do, people will get confused and not really understand your answer. At the most an email answer should be about three or four paragraphs. If you include bullet points it will be easier for the recipient to act on.

* Copy Tasks to Your Calendar Immediately – Use your calendar to its fullest advantage by copying and pasting anything with a date in it to your calendar immediately. If it’s a task, copy and paste to your project management system too in order to stay on track with your activities.

A final idea is to outsource anything to do with customer service to someone else. That way you don’t even need to deal with it. Using these tips and tricks can help you manage your emails so that they don’t take up too much of your time and effort. Taming the email monster will pay off in many ways and give you back more time each day to use on more important tasks.

Less Clutter = Less Stress ^SM     in your home, your business and your life

Organizational Consulting Services

http://www.organizationalconsultingservices.com

Help to Organize Your Office

Whether you work in an office at home or in a regular office being organized is crucial to your success.  By being organized you will be able to complete your work in a more efficient manner with less stress.

By organizing your files, your email, your schedule.... you will be able to look more professional and won't constantly be looking for things.

File management, paper management - is very time consuming. Keep your business and yourself on track by being efficient.

Read some of the following posts to learn how to be more productive.



Organizing Your Email: 

http://professionalorganizer4u.blogspot.com/2013/04/organizing-your-email.html


Organizing Your Files:

http://professionalorganizer4u.blogspot.com/2012/03/organizing-your-files.html


Organizing Your Home Office:


http://professionalorganizer4u.blogspot.com/2011/02/organizing-your-office-move.html


Business - Organizing Your Schedule and Paperwork:

http://professionalorganizer4u.blogspot.com/2011/05/business-organizing-your-schedule-and.html


Organizational Consulting Services

www.organizationalconsultingservices.com

Organizing Your Email

Everyone gets bombarded with email. How in the world do you keep up?

Unless you are on your computer (or other device) 24/7 you will eventually get behind.

So how can we  keep our emails and constant electronic communication from taking over our lives?

It's addicting. We think that we can't live without being "connected".  But not so long ago - people survived without email, texts, twitter and everything else.

If you are in business it's almost required to be connected these days. But at what costs?

What if you are not in a business where your job requires that you stay connected 24/7.  Most people today are still obsessed with their electronic devices.

By being able to organize your email so that you can quickly decipher what is important and what isn't - junk mail that's not spam - you can save yourself a little bit of time.

Get into the habit of putting something into your "subject" line of the emails that you send so that the other person knows what the email is about.  Hopefully you will be able to tell from other people's email subject line if it is something that needs to be dealt with immediately, if it's something that can be deleted, if it's something that can be dealt with at a later time or maybe it's something that can be filed in a "reference" file.

Get into the habit of checking your email at only certain times of the day. Quickly go through and put your emails into categories first.

After you have categorized them into "must read", "can deal with later", "for reference" and "junk - delete now" - then you can deal with each group when you have time.

Each person needs to decide on categories that make sense to them. By dealing with one category at a time you can get through your emails quicker.

By cutting down the amount of times that you check your email you will save yourself a lot of time and you will have more time to devote to more important things - such as your family and friends.

Organizing your email - your inbox - takes some time. But once you are done and get into the habit of putting things where they belong - you will be amazed at how easy it is.




Organizational Consulting Services

www.organizationalconsultingservices.com

COMPUTER and EMAIL ORGANIZING

Getting rid of the clutter on top of your desk doesn’t mean that your office is organized. There is probably “hidden clutter"….in your computer.

Just as you should clean out and de-clutter your desk and office …. you should also de-clutter your computer.

Your “inbox” is probably filled with a ton of mail. Mail that should have been deleted, filed or dealt with a long time ago.

Don’t use your inbox as a “holding” spot for every piece of mail that you get. Don’t use is as a “catch all” or a “library of information”. Your inbox is just a “mailbox”. Use it as such.

You get your regular mail out of the mailbox at your house. So do the same with your “email mailbox”.

First, start by making a list of items that you want / need to keep. For example:
* Mail from my Boss
* Mail from Client “A”
* Mail from Client “B”
* Mail from Vendors
* Mail from Teachers
* Mail from H.R. Dept
* Articles to Read
* Meeting Notes
* Newsletters
* Financial Information
* Letters to Clients

Create a “folder” for each of these categories. Make sure that the name that you give to your folders is descriptive enough so that you know what’s in them. It doesn’t help if you just move things from your Inbox to another folder and then can’t find it when you need it.

When you send email always put something descriptive into the subject line. That way the recipient knows what the email is about and it’s more likely to get read. If you leave the subject line blank it might end up in someone’s Spam or Trash folder.

When you need someone to answer a question or give you some information in an email, ask them to also put something into the subject line. Some email programs allow you to ‘sort’ your email by subjects or they will automatically put your email into an appropriate folder based on who it’s from. Take advantage of the different functions of your email program to sort things in a more organized manner.

Once you have decided on “folders” there are two schools of thought on how to “organize and deal with” your email.

The first says that after you receive the email you should look at the subject line and immediately put it into the “appropriate folder” and deal with it later (at the end of the day or another time set aside for dealing with email).

The other school of thought is that you read the email, deal with it (or delete it) and then file it into the appropriate folder if you want or need to keep it.

Choose a method that works best with how you work and what works best for you.

However, everyone agrees that you should set aside a very specific time to actually read your emails. Whether it’s once a day (for personal email) or two (2) or three (3) times a day for business emails….you should NOT become a SLAVE to your email.

Do not check your email every single time you hear that “you’ve got mail” noise ! This is a waste of your time. For some people that could mean checking their emails 20 – 50 times a day ! Not only are they checking their email, they are also making decisions on what to do with their email or responding to their email. That would also mean that they are not getting anything else done.

By setting up a schedule to check your emails at certain times of the day ….you have the rest of the day to actually do your job. Set aside a specific time (whether it’s 15 minutes or ½ hour) a couple of times a day (morning and afternoon, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon…. whatever works for you) to check and deal with your email.

Another important thing that you should do is to “log out” of your email account after you are done reading it. Do not just “minimize” your email account because you will be tempted to check your email more frequently.

You should also set a schedule (once a month, once every other month, once every six months…) to go through and purge things that you don’t need any longer. This will also free up space on your computer.

Technology is wonderful….if you let it work for you….and don’t become a slave to it.

By being organized and having a set routine you will save yourself a lot of time and will also find that you are a lot more efficient.

Organizational Consulting Services

http://www.organizationalconsultingservices.com/