Improve Productivity by Dealing with Email Overload Effectively

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Email has been hailed as one of the most important communication tools in this century. And it is for the right reason. Can you imagine continuing to use snail mail that would take 3-4 days to arrive at your doorstep in this day and age? Getting the email message on your computer, and now on your mobile device, instantaneously is one of the most effective communication technology of our time. Unfortunately, as with any other technology people have gone overboard with email and it is now being blamed for consuming majority of the day in people’s lives and, as counterintuitive as it sounds, loss of productivity. How can this be?

Blame the ubiquity of email and its use for every type of communication you can imagine. Need to send a quick message to someone? Use email. How about newsletter subscription? Email, of course. Want to make sure someone is informed of the communication? It is as easy as putting him/her in CC in the email. The list could go on and on. Also, the proliferation of mobile devices has given new dimension to this challenge. Is there any way out of this email hell? Researchers have come up with number of ideas to effectively deal with the email overload. Listed below are some of the most effective ones we have come across.

  • One touch Interaction – Make sure you “touch” the email only once. Many people can’t decide what to do with an email when they have read it, so they keep it around in the mailbox instead of dealing with it right away. It takes up more effort every time you keep looking at it without a resolution. If you need to send a reply to the sender do it right away. If it is something you want to read later put it in the separate mailbox. Whatever you do make sure you have come to a resolution when reading the email for the first time.
  • Unsubscribe from unwanted senders – We have all come across this situation where we subscribed to a newsletter or mailing list that we deemed important at some point. As time progressed that newsletter is no longer important to us, but we continue to get it in our mailbox because we just forget to unsubscribe from it. Make it a resolution to unsubscribe from the mailing lists and newsletters that you no longer read.
  • Deal with important Emails first – When you are getting hundreds of emails every day it becomes difficult to determine which ones are important emails that you need to deal with right away. Just making that determination takes time and effort. Make sure you use the filtering tool available in email programs effectively to find out the most important emails such as those from your boss or wife. Failing to respond to those emails quickly can cost you dearly!
  • Resist the urge to check email continuously – The email notification tool where the pop-up box shows you the sender and headline as soon as it arrives can have negative impact on your productivity. There are times when you need to concentrate on a task at hand without any interruption. Unfortunately, switching between task at hand and email constantly can hurt your ability to concentrate and impact productivity. Make sure to turn off the email notification during those times.

As you can see, it is possible to deal with emails more effectively to get the most of out of it. Several startups have developed technology to rescue you from this email torture chamber. One such startup is called very aptly SaneBox. Their technology works seamlessly with your existing email program automatically without you having to worry about every single email. Those who have used their program swear by it. They claim to have improved their productivity with the use of SaneBox significantly.

You can activate your free 14 day trial with SaneBox right now and if you use this link you will also receive $10 credit applied to your account. Happy Emailing!