5 Tips for Managing Email

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Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved

www.time-management-solutions.com

5 Tips for Managing Email

By Harri Jussila



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5 Tips for Managing Email Report

Version 1.0

January 2012

Time Management Solutions


[Optimized for double sided printing]

Copyright 2011 by Harri Jussila

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or byany means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior

written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and

certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher,

at the website above.

The author and publisher of this report and the accompanying materials have used their best efforts in

preparing this report. The author and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the

accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this report. The information contained in this

report is strictly for informational purposes. Therefore, if you apply the ideas contained in this report, you

accept full responsibility for your actions.

The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable to any party for any direct, indirect, punitive, special,

incidental or other consequential damages arising directly or indirectly from any use of this material, which is

provided "as is", and without warranties.
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Contents

Introduction ____________________________________________________________ 4

Tip 1: Turn Off Email Alerts ________________________________________________ 5

Tip 2: Lessen the Amount of Unnecessary Emails _______________________________ 6

Tip 3: Use Quick Parts for Frequently Used Paragraphs __________________________ 7

Tip 4: Follow CC Emails Separately __________________________________________ 9

Tip 5: Create a Waiting for Reply Folder _____________________________________ 11


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Introduction

In this short guide, I want to share with you a few practical tips for managing email more

efficiently. I have successfully used all these five tips myself. I hope you will find something

useful among them for you too. This guide does not describe a complete email managementprocess. Instead, you should consider the tips presented here as a few drops of oil into your

current email management routine. We will discuss total email management separately,

another time.

In order to warm you up, and give you an overview, here are the 5 tips of this guide:

Tip Why

Turn of email alerts Any distractions will redirect your focus

from what you are currently doing, and slow

you down. Email alerts are in most casesunnecessary distractions.

Use signatures for frequently used

paragraphs

Are you tired of describing how to find our

office (for the 25th time)? This tip is great

for that.

Sign yourself off all extra email lists Dont waste time on useless emails.

Follow your CC-mails separately You might not need to read all your inbound

emails right away (especially if your address is

only carbon copied).

Create a waiting for reply folder This tip describes a simple way to follow-up

emails, to which you are waiting replies for.

The step-by-step instructions are done with Outlook 2010, but on a generic level the

techniques are applicable to most email programs. Regarding these setups, Outlook 2007 is

almost the same as 2010.

Thank you for your interest to this short guide. As I already wrote, I hope you will find

something of your interest in the following pages!

Feedback is always welcome!

All the Best,

Harri JussilaHarri Jussila, Managing Editor

Time-management-solutions.com


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Tip 1: Turn Off Email Alerts

Emails are essential for business today, but their arrival often distracts work. How? Well, let

me remind you of at least three ways:

You discuss business at a colleagueswork place. Suddenly you hear bing, and awindow glances at the lower right corner. Your colleague received email, but you

both look at what just arrived. Actually you should not, but you cannot help it (its

interesting, right?)

Somebody hosts a meeting, and has their screen on the projector. Bing.Again thelittle Window. Everybody sees the first sentence: Hi honey, please bring some milk

for

You work for yourself concentrated on some project, thinking vividly. Bing. Youstop thinking and instead instinctively check the arrived email, which results ininterrupted work and distraction. You just lost your flow moment.

I recommend that you only check email periodically, e.g. once per hour. Deal with email in

batches. Start by turning off your email alerts:

1. Click on the File ribbon

2. Select Options. A new window pops

up.

3. Select Mail (left side).

4. Scroll down to Message arrival (right

side)

5. Unselect at least Play a sound, and

Display a Desktop Alert

6. Press OKat the bottom


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Tip 2: Lessen the Amount of Unnecessary Emails

In order to further lessen unnecessary emails, I recommend you stop them before they arrive

to your inbox at all. This will give you more time to concentrate on real work.

I recently counted all the extra (mostly marketing related) emails I got during a workday,

and the amount was surprisingly too high. My 10 year Gmail account, which is still important

to me, received at least 30 minor importance, semi-junk emails that day. Remember that

Gmail filters a lot of real spam automatically.

I have found that many other people too waste time on unnecessary marketing emails. Most

of such emails dont provide enough value to justifyeven their rightful processing.

My advice is: Dont waste your time on such non useful junk. Make a proactive attempt to

stop those emails before they even reach your inbox. Here are a few ideas:

1. For emails that arent of REAL interest

to you, start aggressively clicking on the

Unsubscribe links. Most legitimate

marketing emails provide them. This

works in 70% of cases.

2. Some smaller businesses rely on more

primitive email marketing methods, like

emailing you directly, and no unsubscribe

link is provided. In such cases, you can ask

to be removed by replying to the email.

Remember to be kind. However, never

respond to obvious professional spam.

3. When you get emails that clearly are

junk, dont open them. Instead, just right

click on them, and selectJunkand then

further Block Sender on the right side.

This will move that email to your junk

email folder, and put any future emails

from the same sender directly to the Junk

emails folder.

Fighting unnessecary email is not always easy, but these 3 steps will get you going.


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Tip 3: Use Quick Parts for Frequently UsedParagraphs

Most of you are probably familiar with Signatures, right? Email signatures are very handy for

the clear reason that nobody wants to type the same contact information at the end of emails,again and again.

Up to Outlook 2003 it was possible to add several signatures on a same email. This could

come handy, as it was also possible to save frequent paragraphs, like how to arrive to our

office as a signature, and then just could add several signatures on the same email, as per

needed.

Since Outlook 2007 that is no longer possible. If you try to add another signature, Outlook

just replaces the first one. Instead, you should use something called Quick Parts. But no

worries, it is almost better. So, lets take the example of creating a Quick Parts for how toarrive to your office.

1. From your email message, select the

part of the message that you want to save

as a new Quick Part.

2. Select the Insert tab and further the

Quick Parts drop down menu.

3. Select Save selection to Quick Part

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4. A window opens. Give your quick part a

describingname. Also, I recommend that

you set select Insert content in its own

paragraph from the drop down menu.

Dont worry about the rest.

5. You can now use your newly created

quick part in any other email, by just

selecting the drop down menu QuickParts, and by selecting the one you want

to use, with a normal left click.

6. If you want to delete a quick part, then

right click instead, and select Organize

and Delete This will open a screen that

makes deleting possible.

7. If you want to modify the contents ofan existing quick part, just write a new

one, and name it with the same name as

the one you want to replace. When the

system askes if you want to replace the

existing one, clickYes.


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Tip 4: Follow CC Emails Separately

What are CC emails? In this report I will define CC emails as such emails, where your email

address is only mentioned in the CC (carbon copy) field, in contrast to your email address

being mentioned in theTo field. Assuming the sender knows what the different addressfields are meant for, you should be able to assume that cc emails are not burningly urgent for

you.

In this tip we are going to redirect cc emails directly to a separate folder, called CC-Mails.

First we are going to create the email folder. Then we are going to create the rule.

This tip helps to keep your Inbox cleaner. Your responsibility is still to regularly check your

CC-Mails folder too. I recommend a frequency of twice a day, but this really depends on

your job and responsibility. You will always see when new items have been directed abd

arrived in that folder, as the folder turns bold, just like Inbox does.

1. Put mouse cursor above the Inbox

folder, and press left mouse button

2. Select New Folder from the menu

3. Enter the name: *CC Mails. The star in

the front helps to keep this folder very

close to Inbox. (Otherwise if you later add

another email folder starting with A or B,

like Amelialet us play it is your new best

friendthat will appear above CC Mails,

and come between CC Mails and Inbox.

This is because Outlook uses alphabetical

ordering in determining folder

4. Now, from your Home ribbon, chose

the Rules drop down menu. Select Create

RuleClick directly on Advanced

Options


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5. Check the box in front ofwhere my

name is in the Cc box and click on Next

6. Now check the box in front ofmove it

to the specified folder

7. Then click on the underlined word

specified in the lower box

8. Select the *CC Mails folder that we just

created from under Inbox (you may need

to open the hierarchy tree, by clicking in

front of Inbox). Press Ok.

9. Now, press Finish


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Tip 5: Create a Waiting for Reply Folder

This tip we are going to create a folder, called *Waiting for Reply, where you can store

copies of important emails, to which you wait a reply for. By looking regularly into your

Waiting for Reply folder, you will be able to see all the emails, to which someone has not yetreplied.

This tip really can help you remember all your open questions, or rather open emails.

When you get a reply to one of the emails, you can delete the copy in your *Waiting for

Reply folder.

As we just created both folders and rules, Im going to just give the needed steps here below,

in a list:

1. Create a new folder, and name it *Waiting for Reply2. From your Home ribbons, select Rules3. Select Create Rule,and go directly toAdvanced Options4. In the rules wizard, check the boxwith specific words in the recipients address.

In the area below, click on the underlined text specific words, which appeared there

when you checked the box above

5. Outlook asks you to specify a word or phrase. Write your email address in the field.E.g. in my case I would writeharri.jussila@time-management-solutions, which is the

email address in this Outlook account.

6. After you have entered your email, pressAdd and then Ok7. Now press Next8. Check the box in front ofMove a copy to a specified folder9. From the area below, click on the underlined word specified.A selection box opens.10.Select the new folder *Waiting for Reply11.Press Ok12.Check also the box in front ofMark it as read. You have now selected two boxes

within the Step 1: Select Action(s) are.

13.Now, press Finish14.Outlook will tell you that this is a client side rule. Dont worry. Just press Ok.

When you in the future write an email to which you really want to follow-up that you get an

answer, just put your own email address in the CC or BCC field. A copy of the email will be

placed in the folder we just created. Every now and then you can go there and see which

items you still have open. This is a primitive yet effective system for following that.
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5 Tips for Managing Email