Email Organization

I am having Tuesday early this week because I wont be in the office tomorrow. So today is the day for an office stress reducing tip. Don't let your email control you.

One way to do this is to set up folders so that emails with certain subjects, or from certain people go directly into folders where you can comfortably ignore them until you are ready to see what they say.

Another possibility is to use your autoresponder. Most people use this when they go on vacation to explain why their response is delayed, but who says vacation is the only time to use the autoresponse? Just today I sent an email and got an autoresponder telling me "I won't be able to get to your email right away. I will respond as soon as I get the chance." Or something like that The point is, she didn't say she was out of the office, just let me know not to expect a 1 hr turnaround time. And that's fine. My expectations were managed and, hopefully, freedom from email gave my colleague a little freedom from stress as well. Not to mention some free time to actually get work done.

Of course, you cant ignore email forever (well, I guess you could but its probably not a good way to keep your job). So fit it into your day by setting aside a couple times when you will sit down and focus only on answering emails.