Research Has Found We Spend too Much Time Emailing
According to research from the 50-150 emails, we get on a daily average, some of us can waste as much as a quarter of our working days managing our emails! By learning to organize our email accounts and maintaining the process, we can ensure better work efficiency and save plenty of time. Whether you want to organize your inbox or maintain someone else’s business emails for them, here are a few tips on how you could start.
Let’s explore how you can organize the world’s most popular email account Gmail, with reportedly 1.8 billion users worldwide. To tidy up your existing email account, you should start by creating a few folders, by clicking on Create new label. Simplicity is key here, the fewer Folders you may create, the more transparent it can be. You could create different labels for your private and business email account. Unless you have all the emails under one account.
Label Titles For Private and Business Accounts
In a private account you could add the following labels:
- Work
- Expenses
- Leisure
- Family and Friends, etc.
In a business account you could name the labels:
- To-do’s/Calendar/Project Management tools like Asana, or Trello
- Business Meetings
- Business Expenses
- Business Trips
- Personal Projects
- Personal Receipts
- Marketing Materials
- Social Media (If you have a Facebook business account or any other tool/software you frequently use and need to find information quickly, create a new folder for each of those)
- Newsletters
- Family and Kids’ School, etc.
If you organize a business email account, you can add important projects’ or clients’ names as labels. This way, you could also find them easily, for instance, Business Development Project, or John Smith. By adding a Newsletter folder, you can easily return to people you may follow. Also, you may add a high-priority account titled ACTION NEEDED, for instance. You may make it bold, color it red by clicking on the label’s three dots, and changing the label color.
Separating Sections
When you are done with the labels, you can separate various sections to enhance visibility and performance. You can do this if you click on Settings, then click and set the followings:
- See all settings
- Inbox – Inbox Type – Change Default to Priority Inbox
- Inbox Section – Tick the Important and Unread
- Click on New Section underneath – Set it to All ACTION NEEDED
- In the next New Section, you may add your next priority label
- You may leave the Everything else section – you can set the number of items
- Save Changes on the bottom of the page
This way, you will get separate sections of Important and Unread emails on the top followed by the All ACTION NEEDED and the Everything else labels. This is a great solution if you want to simplify your email account or anyone else’s, so there’s no need to search and go through plenty of emails all the time. There can be only a few high-priority emails left. In the ACTION NEEDED SECTION are those emails that you need to answer, it’s a kind of To-do list.
Depending on who needs to take action in case of a shared email account, you can assign tasks by name. In the ACTION NEEDED section select the email you want to assign to someone, click on Label as, and enter under New Label the name you want to assign this email to, for instance, Peter.
If you manage someone else’s business email account, they can now easily see whose task is the specific email. You can avoid unnecessary discussions about the emails. After you assigned an ACTION NEEDED section email to the appropriate person, select it and Move it to another folder. Then, you can remove the ACTION NEEDED label, click Apply. This removes the email from the ACTION NEEDED section.
Everything Else Section
You should tidy up this section by erasing all unnecessary subscriptions. When you have invoice emails like reoccurring payments that don’t require further action, you can filter those to appear in the correct folder. Select the email and click on the three dots on the top of the email chain, next to the Everything else section.
Click on Filter messages like these, then click Create filter. Here, tick the actions you need, Skip the Inbox, Mark as read, Apply the label Personal Receipts. You can also apply it to the given number of matching conversations at the bottom. If you click on Filter, these emails will appear in Personal Receipts, and you don’t need to take your time to sort them out manually any longer.
Some More Effective Settings
If you want to improve the visibility of All your mails and your Inbox, click on Settings, then See all settings. Then click Inbox, tick Enable reading pane, set it to Right of inbox, then Save Changes. This allows you to see your email chain on the left, and the specific email you click on the right, so you can see them at the same time. It can be very helpful for business purposes. Working remotely more and more requires us to add to our knowledge base.
Conclusion
Organizing your emails to support your everyday life and business can save you a lot of time and unnecessary search. It can contribute to faster and more efficient communication. Hence your overall life can get more effective. You can significantly reduce the time spent on the business inbox. If you manage someone else’s account you can cut down on unnecessary interaction. They can be thrilled, and you help them tremendously. It is worth getting more organized!
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