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Tip
1: Dealing With Email Efficiently
Is answering your email killing your productivity?
While a fair proportion of the email you receive may be unsolicited spam, if you're in
business, you probably receive anywhere from fifty to thousands of emails that need
to be answered each day. But they don't have to be answered immediately! Don't respond to your email "on demand". If you're using an email program that announces
the arrival of new email, turn off the program's announcement features, such as making
a sound or having a pop-up screen announce the arrival of new mail. Answering email on
demand, or even looking at it, can seriously interfere with whatever other tasks you're
trying to accomplish. Instead, set aside a particular time each day to review and answer your email. Schedule
the hour or whatever time it takes you to answer the volume of email you get, and stick
to that schedule as regularly as possible. And don't answer your email at your most productive time of day. For me, (and for many
others, I suspect), my most productive work time is the morning. If I start my work day
by answering my email, I lose the time that I'm at my most creative. If I'm writing a piece,
for instance, it takes me twice as long to compose it in the afternoon or evening than it
would in the morning, when I feel fresh and alert. Answering email, on the other hand, isn't usually a task that calls for a great
deal of creativity. So by ignoring my email until the late afternoon, and answering it
then, I get the dual benefit of saving my most productive time for other more demanding
tasks, and not continually interrupting whatever other tasks I'm trying to accomplish. What time of day is your most productive? Scheduling less demanding tasks such as
answering email outside of your "best" working time will help you make the most of your working
day. Go to the Small Business: Canada Biz Tips Index
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by
Susan Ward
