Managing emails

[thedevilsavocado]

I am hoping for some advice for how to manage my overflowing inbox. I have recently taken on a programme lead role and I just cannot keep on top of emails. I received 126 today, not including spam, they all need replies. How do you all keep on top of this without spending most of the day on emails?

Put them in three folders, urgent, semi urgent, and complete as and when possible. Then when having quiet moment's, try to catch up, or out in overtime when possible to keep on top.

Thanks, I will try the three folders idea. I used to get to inbox zero every day but I can't hold back the tide now!

Use the colours - that way you can see the list rather than it be hidden in a folder.

Quick scan of the content and that should alert you. Either colour as above (urgent etc) or by project/recipient (eg if you see it's from Boss / a student / a supplier).

I'm lethal with the delete button so if I get copied into a conversation and the emails ping back forth back forth, I keep the newest one, as long as the whole conversation is on there.

My last tip - close outlook for allotted times in the day.

Thanks and yes, I need to close outlook to stop the constant pinging!

Welcome to the world of "academic leadership"!

I use folders. I also turn off the pinging noise - go into your Outlook/Exchange settings to do this.

I found as Head of Department that email could take my whole day, so I started to triage. One thing I still do is to click reply, start the email - ie simply the greeting - save it in my Drafts, and then at the end of the day power through my Drafts folder.

Email can be a trap - you think, "Oh I'll just answer all these emails, get them out of the way so I can get on with my main (or real ) work." That's the trap! It takes all your "good" productive time!

There's a great video re filling a bucket with stones as a symbol of the balance between small tasks & main tasks in terms of productivity:

Thanks @IntoAir this is exactly the trap I have been falling into!

I get your pain. I am now in control my inbox. 3/5 days of the week I have inbox zero. After years of struggling, I felt tied to my inbox, little productivity. Lockdown, WFH, increased email activity by 150%...

I am using the 4D's Delete, Delegate, Defer, Do method, 3 months later I feel I am in control! I found this video which was most helpful and kept it simple.

Other Tips:-

Colour code cc emails, it stops you reading every single one. Junk/spam emails unsubscribe straight away, it will make a difference
Stop sending emails, and consider Reply to All or cc others before sending. I reduced emails I send it t is working, less emails received. I have manager who has to respond to every single email, I now send him updates one on one, at least I only received one email.

Good Luck!

just logged on to start a new conversation exactly along these lines and ask for tips on how to deal with work admin before it becomes 'urgent'. I always seem to leave things until they become urgent and then spend a few days panicking about it and whether things will get done in time etc (currently doing this now over an email I got this morning :|) - hate admin so much. The research paper I'm currently working on is all-consuming and really takes up all of my mental bandwidth. I'm also terrible at multitasking, I can only fully devote myself to and finish one project at a time.

I heard about the 2 min email rule, i.e if it will take 2 min to respond reply to it immediately, otherwise shelve for later.

Another tip I have been given is to save all your emails in drafts and then send them all at the same time. Then come off your email account while you complete other tasks and go back to your inbox later. This way you don't get stuck in a constant chain of non-stop emails. I have been trying this and for a couple of days, it seems a bit more manageable.

I do this too; very helpful

I have set times I do email. Pointless Zoom meetings; certain evenings; dead half- hours.

Also schedule in research time and stick to it. Don't open email that morning. Start writing or whatever you're doing. Email will still be there later!

My exHoD, now v senior, did email 4-5pm. That was it. If it didn't get answered then? It waited. But you probably do have to be pretty senior for that.

OP I feel your pain.. I remember once getting caught in a corridor convo for 25 mins and when I came back I had 50 new emails. Eurgh!

@JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff

I have set times I do email. Pointless Zoom meetings; certain evenings; dead half- hours.

Also schedule in research time and stick to it. Don't open email that morning. Start writing or whatever you're doing. Email will still be there later!

My exHoD, now v senior, did email 4-5pm. That was it. If it didn't get answered then? It waited. But you probably do have to be pretty senior for that.

OP I feel your pain.. I remember once getting caught in a corridor convo for 25 mins and when I came back I had 50 new emails. Eurgh!

I am ruthless with emails. I do several things:

I usually do emails 7.30-8.15pm and no longer. If I don't get to an email in that time, tough luck. I'm usually 3 days behind on emails which is fine (i.e. replying to stuff which was sent 3 days ago). I know its outside of work time but this is helpful for me; because it's cutting into my evening, I have a very maverick attitude and tend to whip through them very quickly.

I also take a very clinical and pragmatic approach to emails, I ignore all the niceties and go into each email asking "What does this person want from me?". Once I've figured that out, I do the thing there/then to get rid of the email.

On the same theme, I've stopped with niceties in my emails. I have mixed feelings about this (which are also wrapped up in gender and emotional labour) but it saves a huge amount of time when you stop asking people "How's the book going?" or "Did you enjoy the long weekend?"

But, I do still do a bit of niceness . My email signature is "Hi Thanks for your email. I hope you're doing well. Thanks, Novice"
This means I'm not typing out the niceties every time, but just need to insert my actual email text after "well".

Novice, that's brilliant with the signature! I'm usually very to the point with my emails and wonder if I offend people. But I suspect I'd just keep deleting the nicety if I added it to my signature - do people notice you tend to say the same thing?

My email is totally out of control and I don't know what to do. My Inbox has thousands of messages, dating back to a time that I encountered a "feature" in the system where messages moved mailboxes could vanish. The feature has gotten better over the years, as our Uni's servers sped up, but it can still lose emails if a lot are transferred at once. So I don't know how I can ever get this clear! And now I've found I can miss emails if I "get through" the unread emails at the top of my inbox before my email finishes loading all the messages - I just missed a chunk this way yesterday! An empty inbox would fix this, but I'm scared to lose messages.

@murmuration

Novice, that's brilliant with the signature! I'm usually very to the point with my emails and wonder if I offend people. But I suspect I'd just keep deleting the nicety if I added it to my signature - do people notice you tend to say the same thing?

My email is totally out of control and I don't know what to do. My Inbox has thousands of messages, dating back to a time that I encountered a "feature" in the system where messages moved mailboxes could vanish. The feature has gotten better over the years, as our Uni's servers sped up, but it can still lose emails if a lot are transferred at once. So I don't know how I can ever get this clear! And now I've found I can miss emails if I "get through" the unread emails at the top of my inbox before my email finishes loading all the messages - I just missed a chunk this way yesterday! An empty inbox would fix this, but I'm scared to lose messages.

Could you not set up a folder to move the emails too, leaving inbox with what you are dealing. Office 365 has a built in facility where you click on Archive, within the toolbar and it auto moves email to the folder keeping the inbox clean and tidy. If not a new folder, and maybe look at using quick step rule to move without dragging and dropping.

I have several quick steps that move my emails as I process them to TO DO, Follow Up, Done, Read, and one that copies email and makes an appointment in my schedule [book out time]

Ooh, archive looks interesting...

The problem is that if I move too many emails at once, there is a chance that some get lost. This apparently has something to do with Outlook's update cycle and the speed of the hosting machine and if it updates the destination folder BEFORE the move but the originating folder AFTER, the messages just vanish. I've watched it happen right in front of me. So I'm scared to move everything from the Inbox at once, since there are still messages I care about. But perhaps I could start from some years back with this Archive thing and it might help...

If they are messages from years ago that you care about but are never going to need to reply to, you could download them and store them outside your email system.

@murmuration

Novice, that's brilliant with the signature! I'm usually very to the point with my emails and wonder if I offend people. But I suspect I'd just keep deleting the nicety if I added it to my signature - do people notice you tend to say the same thing?

My email is totally out of control and I don't know what to do. My Inbox has thousands of messages, dating back to a time that I encountered a "feature" in the system where messages moved mailboxes could vanish. The feature has gotten better over the years, as our Uni's servers sped up, but it can still lose emails if a lot are transferred at once. So I don't know how I can ever get this clear! And now I've found I can miss emails if I "get through" the unread emails at the top of my inbox before my email finishes loading all the messages - I just missed a chunk this way yesterday! An empty inbox would fix this, but I'm scared to lose messages.

If I'm replying to someone that I've already sent my signature to then generally I'll just delete the "Hi, Thanks for your email. I hope you're doing well" lines, only takes a second because it's at very top of the email. Sometimes I forget but most of my colleagues know by now that its my signature so just ignore it. I figure that I don't really mind if people think I'm a weirdo because I did a double nice

I'm going through emails today as I regularly miss thing I should have replied to 3 weeks ago.

I dream of an empty Inbox ... probably spend too much time in here