Email is a powerful tool, but can also be a huge time waster.
The main problem with email, especially multiple accounts, is that you wake up each morning with a full inbox to sort through. You get on the computer, and there is is, staring you in the face, begging for attention. If you’re like me, knowing there’s unread email in your inbox can drive you crazy. So, you end up spending half an hour to an hour dealing with said email before you can even start work.
The second problem with email is the amount of rabbit trails one can follow as a result of checking email. The articles, feeds, offers, and notifications we receive could easily have us wasting an hour or two following each link, commenting, and sharing when what we need to be doing is working.
Since becoming a smart phone user, I’ve learned a cool trick that saves me lots of time:
Manage email from the cell phone.
First thing in the morning I grab my phone and check emails. I quickly delete any junk, scan items that seem interesting, answer quick questions, and flag emails that need attention later. Within 15 minutes all of my email can be sorted so that when I log on to my computer I can get right to work on my projects.
How do you manage your email? Do you have a set time of day to deal with email, or do you let it run your life?
Like you, I find unprocessed email to be bothersome.
I allowed my email to get a little out of hand toward the latter part of 09, but have since taken some recommendations from Antti at http://Zemalf.com and installed a neat filtering system. I do use my Blackberry to stay ahead of the game a bit, but feel much better about finally straightening out that system.
I do the same thing as soon as my alarm goes off.
Feels great, doesn't it, to start the work-day off without a full inbox!!
Will you be going to BlissDom???
Ah, I think I have seen that post from Antti! Great idea. I use something like that for my personal gmail account and it's great!
However, I have sooo many email accounts that setting up filtering for each of them would be a mountainous task. I may have to do that in the future, but for now, my handy-dandy Palm Pre is awesome!
No, I won't be.
I am working on getting to Blogher and Type-A for sure this year, but will probably have to hang at home for the first part of the year unless a miracle happens and I can convince someone to sponsor me. HA. 
I'll be linking to your post in a blog post that I started on GMail management.
Aww. I'll miss you! I'm pretty sure I've won a ticket. (sure enough that I have arranged carpool and booked a room) so I get to go. It'll be my very first conference, and probably my only one this year. So looking forward to it!
Cool! I'll have to check out your post. Is it too late to vote for you? You will love it!! I am close enough to drive to Nashville, but I should have planned it sooner.
Girl!! It's too bad the tickets are sold out! You could have roomed with me and @mommadjane!
And yes, voting is open til Sunday. All you have to do is RT #3 on this post!
http://www.collectivebias.com/blog/?p=200
Thanks a bunch!
I'm very similar. The first thing I do when I wake up is check my email, and delete a bunch of them & then forget about it until 1. Morning is stupidly productive time, so I like no distractions until lunchtime.
Try it, great way of relieving stress.
Erica,
I pretty much check my email during the day whenever I'm not busy. Other than that I would check email in the morning and set a certain time to quit reading messages and read email at night and follow the same routine. This way, so many get read and your inbox doesn't control you.
What, what a great feeling of freedom again! lol
Cool article!
A always full inbox stresses me out to no end — but I am terrible at deleting and making the tough decisions. Ultimately I simply can't get to them all and the less important or not urgent just fade into the crowded background.
Hopefully, the important ones that I missed will have persistent people behind them that will holler if I don't answer the first time!
I must be anally retentive but I hate to see unprocessed email in my inbox so I deal with what I can immediately and anything that needs more work on or research I place into a pending folder and the urgent, priority stuff is tagged for easy ID.
I've been using a single email address recently as my “work” email got overloaded with spam. I found that when I was using a single email address, I'd check it every now and again (no set schedule though) and found it was a reasonably way of doing it.
When I got my new phone, I set it up to sync with my gmail account. I found this has done the world of good, coz now whenever I get a new email it sends it straight to my phone. I can then deal with it accordingly… I kinda just imagine it's a text message, as it shows up in practically exactly the same way, and most the emails I need to reply to are a few sentences. However, the longer emails are stored as 'unread' and I look at them when I'm on my computer.
That said, I've recently started using a seperate email for my blogging/work stuff, just for that “professional” element. Every email to that account gets redirected to my “main” account though, so I can still see whether things are worth replying to before I even log on to my computer.
Anyway, I find the latter is an effective way… have seperate email addresses, but redirect them all to one “main” account. The main account may get messy, yes, but it saves you logging in to 5 different accounts just to find you have no new emails!
Simon,
How I wish I could narrow my emails down to two! However, we run multiple home businesses/websites, and it really does look better to have an email at the domain.com your clients know you from.
I did get rid of one this morning! Yippie!
My phone syncs with as many email accounts as I want. I can view them separately, or all together. Very handy!
Sounds like you have a good system worked out, Kevin! I'm like you… the unread stuff drives me insane. I have to do something with it, even if it means flagging it for future reference.
Janice,
Have you tried setting up a filtering system? Maybe you could have email that comes from your contact form go straight to one folder, email generated from Facebook, Twitter, etc sent straight to another, etc.
And, by all means, DELETE!
Hope you had a fantastic date with your sweetie!
Eric,
Thanks for the comments!
My husband handles his email in a similar way. In fact, he has an autoresponder set up that tells people “Thanks! I got your email, however, due to time management issues I only check my email at 9am and 4pm. If your situation is urgent, please call me at (phone number + ext).
It works great for him.
Sounds like a good idea to me!
I really don't have trouble with email except first thing in the morning. I think everyone else catches up on their email late at night cause I always have a multitude of messages in the mornings. Throughout the day I can handle them as they come. If it's something that will take time to answer or needs research I flag it for later when I have time.
I think Jimi actually referred to the comment I left at Jimi's blog about Lifehacker's “10 must have Gmail filters” and “Better Gmail2″ plugin for Firefox. And about managing multiple accounts through one Gmail accounts. Gmail “Labs” has great features for multiple accounts, like setting separate “inboxes” in the view etc.
I also like the “trusted trio” mail system too (follow up, archive, hold), which originated from “Inbox Zero” by Merlin Mann: http://www.43folders.com/43-folders-series-inbo…
My first step is to immediately weed out stuff I may not be in the mood for such as the latest sales from companies I have purchased from in the past. This usually drops the amount by a third. Then my first priority is to answer any emails regarding my blog or my business. Then I can take my time with the rest of the stuff.