Time Mangement Tip:
DEALING WITH EMAIL
I’ve been doing a series on Time Management as it’s a key factor in getting nothing done when you run a business from your home. With all the distractions that keep home business owners and network marketers from their business building activities, it’s Mr. Email.
In this article, I discuss the email problem that most everyone suffers from. I haven’t met a person yet who tells me they have it under control.
Most people don’t even realize it’s sucking their time. Email is the greatest thief of our good working production time. Here’s some recommendations to help you get a handle on this so you can conquer your tasks and get your “to do” list done. In the end, you’ll feel better about what you’ve accomplished for the day and you’ll make more money.
1) Unsubscribe to anything and everything that isn’t moving your business forward.
2) Set up folders in your email for the contact information youwant to keep.
3) If you’re saving emails from individuals for the purpose of file swiping and ad copy ideas, then rather than unsubscribe, set up a rule in your inbox that says when an email comes from a specific address, automatically put it in that persons folder. In this way, you are not distracted in your day to day operations and when you need ideas, you’ve got the emails in the folder for review.
4) Stop looking to the left and right for a business opportunity if you have found one and you’ve made your decision based on all the criteria you set and you’re happy with it. It’s just going to distract you. These come into your email every hour. Again, unsubscribe, and clean your email out.
5) Set up a vacation response to be sent automatically to all who email you. Let them know you check email once a day or twice a day, and you will respond at that time. This is a Tim Ferriss tip, author of The 4-Hour Work Week and it’s worked well for me. It can for you too. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get back to someone for a few hours. Give yourself permission to be professional about it.
6) When you’re done checking email and it’s time to get to work on your business building activities, completely shut down your email program. You don’t want little notices and bells going off every few seconds trying to steal your focus. The same would apply to your phone, IM, Skype, Twitter, everything. Off. The only thing that should be on is perhaps music that you’re best creative listing to. The TV is too distracting.
7) Don’t reply to negative comments and hateful, grumpy people. In fact, don’t even finish reading the email. If you receive a not very nice email, as soon as you know it’s going the wrong way, just delete it. This doesn’t happen too often, but when it does and it’s someone from my list, I simply unsubscribe them. You won’t want negative energy coming into your life, your business, your time. There’s no room for that.
Now if it’s a legitimate complaint or concern, then give good customer service and resolve the issue. I think you know the difference.
It won’t take you long to realize just how much time you were spending on email once you clean up the mess that’s probably there now and follow these simple steps. You’ll be amazed.
Leave me a comment if email is a problem for you or you have any other suggestions that can help people who may be reading this. I value your thoughts and comments.
[...] 1) Staying focused on the task at hand. Too many distractions; specifically email. [...]