How Long Do You Spend On Emails Everyday?

[Shaye ~ proud wahm]

Sometimes keeping up to date with emails is a challange for me. How long do you spend on this task each day?

Do you have any tips on managing this time effectively?

thanks everyone

Shaye

[KansasDragon]

I check it periodically during the day, but don't follow any set routine. I'm pretty good at glancing at subjects, and then closing my email quickly if there is nothing in it pertaining to the task at hand.

One piece of good advice I read recently was to schedule email times, and that the first time should be after you complete your first major item on your to-do list for the day. Otherwise you get distracted from the important items, and start working reactively.

It's a good piece of advice, but not one I live by, yet.

[johndilbeck]

I agree; if there is a major task to be completed, do it before checking email, twitter, or anything else that can be distracting.

Normally, I spend about two hours per day working on email. In general, I get about 300 emails per day and I go through them using my webmail app to delete all the ones that aren't relevant.

Then, I download the rest into Eudora and start going through them. I have about 100 programmed inboxes and the emails are filtered as they download. Some of the inboxes are high priority and I respond to them first. Then I work down through them by priority level.

High priority would be current customers, and new business; medium would be reply notices from forum threads and similar items such as new followers on Twitter. Low priority are any emails that aren't filtered into higher priority inboxes.

If I don't have time to deal with all of them, at least the highest priority messages are handled.

I change priority level on inboxes as my business priorities change. What was a high priority last year may be low priority this year, and vice versa.

When I finish working on email, I don't think about it again until later in the day.

Normally, I check email around 5:00 am and again around 8:00 pm. (I don't work all that time!)

Act on your dream!

JD

[MommyEnterprises]

I am one that basically checks emails all day/night until I go to bed.

[Shaye ~ proud wahm]

[PattyGale]

I check email twice per day... once in the morning before I start anything else and then in the late afternoon / early evening.

I scan for anything super important and if it is, I reply right away. If it's not important, it can wait.

It really has made a huge difference in my productivity in recent years.

[robert adams]

[alexc]

[Jim Guinn]

[stephfoster]

[johndilbeck]

[Shaye ~ proud wahm]

[LeisaWatkins]

[miriampotter]

Hello

I check them a few times a day, but I am trying to use self control, and not let them rule me!

[alexc]

I find a simple filter, and routing all of my accounts straight through Outlook really helps to cut down on the time I have to spend dealing with e-mail. It also helps that I have a little Outlook popup every time a new mail comes in so I can immediately decide if I want to read it or delete it. I spend less time on email that way as I multi-task while still getting all my mail.