Managing a Life by Better Managing E-Mail
Last week I had to pinch-hit for our main news writer, who was on special assignment. I wasn’t sure how I’d successfully juggle two people’s workloads. But, not only did I pull it off, I did it all within my typical 10-hour day (which is down from the 12-hour norm of years past). My secret? E-mail.
As part of my yearlong reduction initiative, I decided to tackle one of my biggest time-wasters at work: managing my e-mail account. As a journalist, I’m at the top of the spam heap, mainly because my e-mail address is blasted all over the place. (Realtors are an even bigger catch, by the way.) As a result, I get 300 to 500 messages daily, about three-fourths of which are some form of spam. The remainder comes from publicists, listservs or staff/company communications. I’m also a remote employee, so I need to check e-mail frequently since I’m not in the office to keep up through osmosis.
For the past month I’ve begun deleting messages whose subject lines suggest I’m not the appropriate recipient of an e-mail blast (usually PR-related). I also no longer use the Out of Office function in Outlook to let spammers know they got a live one. The people who need to know I’m gone are notified ahead of time. And I disabled the alert window that pops up to let me know I have new mail. Instead, I check my Inbox when I have time and ignore it when I don’t. And if I’m just copied on a message, I follow e-mail etiquette and merely read rather than respond.
Amazingly, I’ve trimmed up to two hours off my work day with this strategy (which doesn’t apply to my far-less-fat personal account). And for those legit messages that I accidentally ax? Well, I’ve found that if it’s important, the sender will either make another electronic attempt or call as a follow-up.
This has left me more time to do the things I enjoy, like watch late afternoon rebroadcasts of Bravo reality shows while doing laundry or paying bills. It’s also given me fewer excuses, which I could have used last night when we ran 800s in pouring rain during track practice. The crowd was much, much smaller than usual, and somehow I don’t think it was because everyone else was too busy answering e-mails.
Here are some online resources if you’d like more control over your electronic communications:
Email Overloaded blog
Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero series
Do-it-yourself: Stop junk mail, e-mail and phone calls
As part of my yearlong reduction initiative, I decided to tackle one of my biggest time-wasters at work: managing my e-mail account. As a journalist, I’m at the top of the spam heap, mainly because my e-mail address is blasted all over the place. (Realtors are an even bigger catch, by the way.) As a result, I get 300 to 500 messages daily, about three-fourths of which are some form of spam. The remainder comes from publicists, listservs or staff/company communications. I’m also a remote employee, so I need to check e-mail frequently since I’m not in the office to keep up through osmosis.
For the past month I’ve begun deleting messages whose subject lines suggest I’m not the appropriate recipient of an e-mail blast (usually PR-related). I also no longer use the Out of Office function in Outlook to let spammers know they got a live one. The people who need to know I’m gone are notified ahead of time. And I disabled the alert window that pops up to let me know I have new mail. Instead, I check my Inbox when I have time and ignore it when I don’t. And if I’m just copied on a message, I follow e-mail etiquette and merely read rather than respond.
Amazingly, I’ve trimmed up to two hours off my work day with this strategy (which doesn’t apply to my far-less-fat personal account). And for those legit messages that I accidentally ax? Well, I’ve found that if it’s important, the sender will either make another electronic attempt or call as a follow-up.
This has left me more time to do the things I enjoy, like watch late afternoon rebroadcasts of Bravo reality shows while doing laundry or paying bills. It’s also given me fewer excuses, which I could have used last night when we ran 800s in pouring rain during track practice. The crowd was much, much smaller than usual, and somehow I don’t think it was because everyone else was too busy answering e-mails.
Here are some online resources if you’d like more control over your electronic communications:
Email Overloaded blog
Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero series
Do-it-yourself: Stop junk mail, e-mail and phone calls
