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5 Tips for Managing Email

5 Tips for Managing Email


By Harri Jussila

www.time-management-solutions.com
Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

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5 Tips for Managing Email

5 Tips for Managing Email Report


Version 1.0 January 2012 Time Management Solutions www.time-management-solutions.com [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 by any 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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Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

5 Tips for Managing Email

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

Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

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5 Tips for Managing Email

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 management process. 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 Turn of email alerts Why Any distractions will redirect your focus from what you are currently doing, and slow you down. Email alerts are in most cases unnecessary distractions. Are you tired of describing how to find our office (for the 25th time)? This tip is great for that. Dont waste time on useless emails. You might not need to read all your inbound emails right away (especially if your address is only carbon copied). This tip describes a simple way to follow-up emails, to which you are waiting replies for.

Use signatures for frequently used paragraphs Sign yourself off all extra email lists Follow your CC-mails separately

Create a waiting for reply folder

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 Jussila
Harri Jussila, Managing Editor Time-management-solutions.com

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Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

5 Tips for Managing Email

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 colleagues work place. Suddenly you hear bing, and a window 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 the little Window. Everybody sees the first sentence: Hi honey, please bring some milk for You work for yourself concentrated on some project, thinking vividly. Bing. You stop thinking and instead instinctively check the arrived email, which results in interrupted 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 OK at the bottom

Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

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5 Tips for Managing Email

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 justify even 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 select Junk and 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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Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

5 Tips for Managing Email

Tip 3: Use Quick Parts for Frequently Used Paragraphs


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 to arrive 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 gallery

Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

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5 Tips for Managing Email

4. A window opens. Give your quick part a describing name. 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 Quick Parts, 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 of an 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, click Yes.

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Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

5 Tips for Managing Email

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 the To field. Assuming the sender knows what the different address fields 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 Amelia let us play it is your new best friend that 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 Rule Click directly on Advanced Options

Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

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5 Tips for Managing Email

5. Check the box in front of where my name is in the Cc box and click on Next

6. Now check the box in front of move 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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Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

5 Tips for Managing Email

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 yet replied. 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 Reply 2. From your Home ribbons, select Rules 3. Select Create Rule, and go directly to Advanced Options 4. In the rules wizard, check the box with 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 write harri.jussila@time-management-solutions, which is the email address in this Outlook account. 6. After you have entered your email, press Add and then Ok 7. Now press Next 8. Check the box in front of Move a copy to a specified folder 9. From the area below, click on the underlined word specified. A selection box opens. 10. Select the new folder *Waiting for Reply 11. Press Ok 12. Check also the box in front of Mark it as read. You have now selected two boxes within the Step 1: Select Action(s) are. 13. Now, press Finish 14. 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.
Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

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5 Tips for Managing Email

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Copyright 2011 Harri Jussila, all rights reserved www.time-management-solutions.com

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