The average American worker receives 126 emails per day. Here’s how to effectively organize emails and stay on top of things.
The sheer volume of the read and unread emails can congest your inbox. The mails may also overwhelm you and make the correspondence process hard. Luckily, you can apply a few proven tricks to declutter and enhance the appeal of your email. Here are nine tips on how to organize emails.
1. Separate Work and Social Emails
Separate your home and work email. When you combine all emails in a single account, you will be dealing with hundreds of emails from different sources. These emails will confuse you, and possibly, you will forget to reply to the important ones.
Two email accounts may help you to declutter. Ensure that one is for office related work, and the other is for your social needs. You may even create more than two accounts, provided that you manage them well.
2. Create Folders
Folders may help you if you don’t like the idea of having multiple accounts. The folders will help you group the emails according to the sender, purpose, or another title.
For instance, you may create a different folder for your clients, one of your employers, social events, etc. All incoming messages will be automatically grouped into specific folders, and you will access them with ease.
Just make sure that you create relevant subjects to each folder, and that you don’t neglect essential message groups for the others. You may create the folders manually or use Google’s category system, which groups the emails automatically.
3. Use Inbox-Zero Email Apps
Multiple email organizers have popped up within the last few years. The primary aim of these organizer apps is to help email users organize their messages by grouping, decluttering, or deleting the spams automatically.
Different apps are designed to meet the unique demands of Mac users, Android users, iOS users, and so on. Each app boasts unique features, and you should, therefore, understand the best for your needs.
Review the available options, and choose the best free email client for mac according to your email organization needs. Understand the terms and conditions for the subscriptions too.
4. Prioritize Some Emails
Some emails are never relevant irrespective of the sender. Others are quite sensitive, and they demand a quick reply. When the different messages mix in the inbox, it becomes hard to differentiate them unless you sort them out individually.
You can organize your email inbox by adding special color codes to mark the most important messages. Alternatively, you may consider creating a priority folder for all the messages which need a quicker response.
Email prioritization will help you sort out the most critical emails without delays.
5. Delete or Archive the Older Messages
Delete or archive the earlier messages to avoid the pile-up. To delete is to erase the copy of the message from your inbox. When you delete, the copy goes to the trash of your email.
You may decide to delete it forever or keep it in the trash if you wish to restore it in the future.
To archive is to send the message to the archive folder, specifically designed for the older messages. Though delete and archive options are different, they all clean up your inbox to better view the newer messages.
6. Create Time to Respond to the Emails
Don’t let the email account stay open all day. If you have a tight daily schedule, log out, and set aside time for the replies.
Note that the trick may only work well for people who never have urgent emails. The timed replies will protect you from the annoying beeps and alerts at work.
The time set for the reading the emails will depend on how much you prioritize the emails. But on average, you may take ten minutes to one hour to go through the mails and continue with your activities.
7. Take Immediate Actions
You may use this tactic if you don’t want your emails to add up and clutter the mailbox. However, the trick is only ideal for people who are always logged into their email accounts.
Take action on all the emails which get to your inbox. Your response could be to read and reply, understand and delete, snooze, archive, or delete.
The immediate actions will keep your inbox clean. Only the useful conversations threads will be left, making it easier to track your past conversations for reference purposes.
8. Avoid Unnecessary Subscriptions
Promotional email subscriptions can spam your inbox. These messages pop up anytime, and they can block you from viewing the relevant work emails from your inbox.
If the promotional emails congest your inbox, click the unsubscribe choice or snooze them. If you can’t trace the unsubscribe link, download the apps which help email users remove the active subscriptions.
Avoid future subscriptions too to avoid email congestions again.
9. Consider the Autoreply Feature
The autoreply feature may save you the time of replying to every email which hits your inbox. You may set up the system to autoreply all the messages or select specific ones.
The ideal autoreply should be polite and realistic. For instance, you may set up a polite message for “I’m busy. Kindly text or call me if it’s urgent.”
Serious people will use the said communication channel to reach you; thus, you will not miss important messages. Nevertheless, remember to go through your inbox when you are free to find out the people who texted you.
Organize Emails With the Above Tricks
Email is one of the most effective and relevant communication channels in today’s era. People use it for digital marketing, for social reasons, and even for promotions. However, frequent notifications may become bothersome, mainly if your work schedules are tight.
Older and unwanted messages may also fill your inbox and make the account hard to manage. If you find the multiple messages annoying, apply the tricks above to organize emails. If necessary, find a social media manager to oversee your email account well.
Email is not the only thing that requires proper planning and organization. As a young entrepreneur or millennial, you still need to plan on your finances and perfectly organize your assets. Check back for more informational business and finance guides to help people like you organize their lives well.