Taking control of your inbox

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In this slide show…

• Time Management

• Discovering bad email habits

• Practical ways to deal with emails

• Average worker spends 41% of their time on email management

• More than half of UK workers admit to being stressed by how many emails they receive

• Email volume is doubling every 4 years

What does your inbox say about you?

• You always have more emails than you would like to have

• You cannot control how everyone communicates with you

• You can control what you do (how you send emails and what you do with them)

Your actions drive others behaviour

Responding in ways that drive others to keep you informed of everything

Asking about too much detail (and not just the important emails)

Not sending emails in ways for others to take action and complete

Bouncing from one email to the next

How many times in a day do you bounce from email to email?

Are you ready to try a new system?

Allocate a time to monitor your emails each day/week

Address each email as you read it with The 4 D’s strategy

Assign each email to a folder >

ActionorReferenceorDelete

The 4 Ds:

1.Deal with the email

2.Delete the email

3.Delegate the email to the relevant person in your team

4.Defer the email and file in ‘action’

Time Management SkillsHow to beat work overload and structure your time more effectively

Could 30 minutes of organisation time each day save you 3hrs of email bouncing?

URGENT NOT URGENT

manage1

focus2

Crises PreparationIMPORTANT Pressing problems Prevention

Deadline driven projects Values ClarificationMedical emergencies PlanningOther true emergencies Relationship building Personal Growth avoid avoid3 4Interruptions, some phone calls Busy work

NOT IMPORTANT Most emails Some phone calls,emailsSome meetings Time wastersMany pressing issues Escape activities Excessive TV

Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix

Do you respond to URGENT emails or the ones that scream

the loudest?

Schedule uninterrupted time to process and organise email

Reference folder

Action folder

Delete

Think of your subject line as a command line

Reflect the email’s content in the subject line

What is your ‘cc’ strategy?Do you read every single email you have been ‘cc’d into?

Do you have a rule for these emails to go into a folder?

If so does your team know that you do not address emails immediately that you have been ‘cc’d into?

Design your email system to suit your specific needs

For example do you receive a number of newsletters each day?

Think about setting a rule that they all go into one folder and you read them once a day/week.

Try not to get bombarded by emails that are not relevant to your daily work load.

• Be consistent in your behaviours

• Your behaviours drive how others email you and arrange meetings with you

• Take responsibility for what comes into your mailbox and stay in the driving seat

Top tips

• Decide when to check your emails

• Write clear subject lines to invite reading and action

• Write emails for others to take faster action

• Read less and ignore more

• Ignore or separate ‘cc’ emails

• Eliminate newsletters

• Create action folders

The 4 Ds:

1.Deal2.Delete3.Delegate4.Defer

Don’t forget!.......

Did you know…..2.8 million emails are sent every second

For more information on the Training Academy contact Off to WorkT: 0207 386 4497 E: training@offtowork.co.uk W: www.offtowork.co.uk