A non-obvious but working way to cut down on your mailing time

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

To optimize the time you spend working with your mail, do not try to put your emails in perfect order. Everything is much simpler, says a MailChimp employee. A couple of simple steps - and you will only need one and a half hours a day to deal with all the letters.

Jon Smith of MailChimp's support team has figured out the perfect email formula by trial and error. First, he created many folders, then deleted every single one, but none of these approaches worked. And then he came to a completely different system.

Despite the fact that replies to letters are almost central to his work, he was able to reduce the time spent on various mail activities to one and a half hours a day. He found that even when the mailbox is full of letters, a couple of simple actions can turn things around.

What you shouldn't waste your time on

As John says, at first he tried to classify letters and created all kinds of folders: for messages from the boss, for information on various projects, messages on which some action needed to be taken, and so on. He believed that this should help him save time. But in fact, he began to spend more time trying to memorize his classification system and less time on the work itself.

For example, I received a message from my boss about a project I was working on, and this message also required me to take certain actions. In which folder should it be placed? And what was the likelihood that I remember where to later look for this letter?

John Smith

So John decided to get rid of all the folders, and complete chaos reigned in his mail. The lack of a system was no better than an overly complex system. Then John decided to once again reconsider his approach to working with mail. He decided to sort the letters not by subject, but by the type of action they required to take. Here's how to do it.

Don't over complicate

Just leave in your Inbox only the messages you need to reply to. The most important ones, if you can't figure them out right away, mark them as unread.

Perhaps this will seem illogical to you, because the most burning things should be done as quickly as possible. It is, and sometimes there really is a need to immediately respond to such messages. But by marking important messages unread, you will definitely not lose them in the general mass. Plus, so you don't have to move these emails: they stay in your Inbox and keep getting attention until you reach them.

I try to make sure that more than 60–70 messages do not accumulate in my mailbox at a time. This is exactly the number of letters that I can easily handle in one sitting.

John Smith

Create a regular mailing schedule for yourself

John sets aside an hour each morning to clean the mailbox. As already mentioned, he often leaves urgent messages “unread”. John quickly skims through newsletters and internal company communications and responds to as many non-urgent messages as he can handle within that hour.

When the hour for mailing comes to an end, John Smith does not close the mailbox, but pays much less attention to it. As new emails arrive, he quickly scans their contents and sender names to prioritize them. If a message can be answered without interrupting for a long time, John does it. But he doesn't start mailing again.

Towards the end of the working day, John sets aside another 30 minutes to devote them exclusively to working with mail. At this time, he is engaged in letters that require him to take any action: give approval, write a detailed answer, or make any decision. It is then that he pays attention to the messages that he marked unread.

I could spend a lot more time working with mail, but such time constraints help me to concentrate better and be more productive.

John Smith

Classify emails by type of response

For some messages, John still created separate folders. Certain letters that he does not mark unread, he distributes only in two directions. Messages that require any action or response from a colleague (not necessarily urgent), John places in the folder "To Do". It is for emails that can be dealt with the next day or later in the week.

Even less urgent letters John moves to the "Read" folder. In addition, it uses special filters that automatically place the newsletter in this folder. It only takes a couple of minutes to install the filters, but this simple step will save you a lot of time and effort later on.

If you use this method, you will get three active folders, differing in the urgency of responding to messages: Inbox with unread messages, To do and Read.

Archive messages

For everything else, John Smith uses the message archiving feature. This helps him to clear the mailbox and head of unnecessary tasks.

As soon as I read the message and take the necessary action, be it a company news or a newsletter that I subscribed to, I archive it.

John Smith

If a message contains important information that John would like to keep for future reference, he marks the archived message with an asterisk so that it can be found faster.

Take extra care when deciding to delete a post

John rarely uses the delete message feature. This is a lesson he learned from real practice. One day, John deleted a message from a colleague containing information that he did not consider important at the time. After this employee left the company, John needed information from that letter. Then he realized that he was in trouble.

After that, I began to delete only those letters that will definitely not be useful to me in the future. Do not be offended, dear colleagues, who send me cute gifs with cats, but these are the messages that end up in the "Trash".

John Smith

To arrive at this system, John Smith tried many different approaches that were not effective enough for him. He tested the methods that other people used, but very soon he realized that he needed to try something different. John came to the conclusion that any system works only when it fits well into the conditions of your particular work.

Try this method or find something of your own. You may be able to find a way to spend even less time on mail.