Simple Online Solutions | Website Design & Development | Sherwood Park | Edmonton

If you're like most small business owners these days, you probably get dozens of emails every day and still don't have a system that works to help you organize those emails so you can be most effective in your electronic communications.

Here are a few tips that I have learned and you might find helpful…

1. Connect all your devices (desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, etc) via IMAP server so that you get folder-based emails stored on your mail server.
   • Most people don't even know that there are two different ways to connect your devices for email: pop and imap.  Pop connections simply allow you to retrieve emails from the server with the most you can do being to leave copies of the messages on the server, in the inbox.
   • IMAP connections allow folder replication on your device and on the server, which means that if you use folders to organize your emails, those folders will always be available to you across all your devices.
   • Note: Telus and Shaw do not support IMAP on their basic plans, but Gmail does.
      
2. Use your inbox as a to-do list, keep emails in the inbox until you can accomplish what's necessary, and then store the email in a separate folder so it's available later for reference.
   • If you get many emails that involve specific objectives, using the inbox in this manner is a handy way of staying on top of your daily tasks. Creating separate folders for each client or project or service provider will help to ensure that you have all your emails with you on all your devices at all times.
      
3. Create a "_Follow Up" folder where you will store emails that are requiring attention but which you can't deal with during the current business day.
   • This folder is very helpful to keep your inbox contents to a minimum, allowing you to focus on more urgent emails that you can wrap up today. Then make a commitment to check the follow up folder at the start of every day.  If there are emails that need attention urgently or which you can wrap up within the given day, slide them into the inbox so they stay top of mind. I also commit to ensuring that emails never stay in the follow-up folder for more than a week.
      
4. Create a "_Back Burner" folder where you will store emails that will most certainly outlive the follow-up folder but which you don't want to lose track of.
   • This folder can be a real life saver so that you don't end up getting mentally bogged down with things that aren't pressing, yet nothing will fall through the cracks because you commit to briefly reviewing the folder contents weekly. When items become more pressing you can then slide them to the follow-up folder or even the inbox as needed.
      
5. Create an "_Assigned" folder where you will store emails that you have assigned to your direct reports.
   • As a business owner, you probably have direct reports, either staff or contractors or even colleagues to whom you will be passing tasks off, and this folder helps you to manage these tasks while keeping you focused on your inbox and follow-up folders. Again, commit to reviewing this folder on a daily and weekly basis so you can keep tabs on the statuses until all elements have been completed. Once the tasks are complete, file the emails into the appropriate client folders.
      
6. Only subscribe to email lists that you truly care about and once you have read the message either delete it immediately or save it in a separate folder you could label "Favorite Subscriptions".
   • Face it, all business owners have too much to do and we all get too much email so why not start weeding it down to only the essentials. Every time I get a new subscription email in my inbox I ask myself, do I really need to know this, do I really need to stay connected? If the answer is no, then unsubscribe yourself immediately.

Employing these simple suggestions will streamline your email management and ultimately give you more time to focus on the parts of your business that you are really passionate about or which generate the most return.