I’ve been doing a lot of research and writing lately about the topic of being more efficient with email. In discussing this topic with people, I’ve discovered that the majority of people who feel that they are not efficient with email have the same few concerns.

Those concerns are:

• Lack of understanding about their email program. Most of these people feel that they don’t fully understand the different things that they can do to sort, organize and utilize their email accounts most efficiently.
• Too-frequent use of email. One of the most common complaints from people is that they check email all of the time which reduces productivity in other areas of their work.
• Taking too long to respond. This means two things. First, people feel like they leave emails in their inboxes too long before answering them which clutters the inbox and stresses them out. And second, they feel like writing up their responses takes too much of their time.

What I have come to believe after talking with these people is that the solution is a fairly simple one:

Set aside time each day to deal with email.

During this time, you can commit to answering everything that comes through your inbox in a focused and efficient manner. You can also commit a certain amount of time each day to learning a new tool or trick for your email. (A good one is to learn about email templates which will reduce your response time!) And then you can forget about email the rest of the day.

Tags: efficiency, ehow, email, how to, kathryn vercillo, productivity, simplify, tips