6 Tips for Effective Mailing

Schedule an email check time

If you feel that you are spending too much time processing mail, and the number of letters in your inbox is still not decreasing, then try to plan more rigidly the time to check your mailbox. Usually we start checking mail, find an interesting link in the letter, go to the site, from there to another … and after half an hour we remember and return to parsing letters. As a result, time has passed, but the matter has not budged.

Therefore, try to set aside a certain limited time for yourself to work with mail. Everyone can set the frequency and duration of these intervals for themselves independently, depending on the volume of their correspondence. Perhaps it will be an hour in the morning and an hour at the end of the working day, or it may be more convenient for you to log into your mail account every hour for five minutes. Most importantly, try to strictly adhere to the schedule set for yourself and not be distracted by anything outsider. Consciousness that your time is limited, will inevitably lead to an increase in the efficiency of processing postal receipts.

Every letter means an action

The main rule that you should apply when parsing mail is that every open letter requires you to do something. If you have opened a letter, then in no case should you leave it in the Inbox again. You must either immediately respond to the letter, or forward it to someone who is better at dealing with this issue, or schedule a task for yourself in Google Task or the calendar - in any case, as a result of your action, the letter should be deleted or moved to the archive, that is leave the inbox … If you follow this simple rule, your inbox will be cleaned up sooner or later.

Filters and shortcuts

If you receive a large number of emails every day, then parsing them takes a lot of time and effort on your part. Why don't you use the resources of the postal service for this, especially since most of the services have this feature and are perfectly implemented?

It's about setting up filters for automatic mail processing. Instead of manually clicking on each post, and each of your click is the same time and effort, just set up the filters you want once. For example, all messages from the addresses of your relatives will automatically go to the Family folder and are marked with a marker as important. All press releases go to a separate folder bypassing the Inbox, and notifications from social networks are immediately sent to the Trash.

In this way, you can categorize messages according to the main topics and prepare accordingly for their processing. You will no longer have a situation where your brain, when parsing mail, switches from household chores to business issues, and then immediately to entertainment mailings, and then back.

There are a huge number of options for creating various filters, and I am sure that once you build an automatic filtering system, you will save days and months of your time. In addition, with the help of assigned labels or distribution by folders, you can easily find the letters you need in the archive (do you remember that our Inbox folder is completely empty?).

Use search

Many users, especially beginners, keep all their emails in their Inbox because they feel like they will never find them again when archiving. If you set up a system of filters and shortcuts, as described in the previous paragraph, then your archive is already organized and much easier to navigate in it. But don't forget about the search bar as well. For example, in Gmail, the system for searching for letters is so perfect (who would doubt it!) That it will not be difficult to find any letter.

Use marks

Many email services have a feature to mark messages with special markers (in Gmail, these are stars). With their help, it is easy to highlight the necessary messages that require your attention and place them in a separate folder. In Gmail, you can choose your own set of flags and use them quite flexibly. Thus, one glance at the contents of your inbox will be enough to distinguish emails according to their importance.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Using hotkeys can speed up the processing of correspondence so much that it is worth spending a few hours studying them. But before that, take a look at the settings (in Gmail it's Settings - General - Shortcuts) and make sure they are turned on. After that, just press the question mark on the keyboard and you will see a prompt with all the Gmail hotkeys.

Email is a great communication tool, but that doesn't mean you have to devote half your life to this process. The maximum automation of all processes, quick replies or forwarding of messages, planning your time along with other tips from this article will allow you to deal with any number of letters rather quickly and save more time for more enjoyable activities.