How To Stop Email From Killing Your Productivity

Email is one of the greatest innovations of the online world, but if you’re not careful it will suck up your time, and be a far detriment to your business than a benefit.
Here are some tips for taming the email beast.

Turn It Off

During the day when you’re working, turn off your email client. You don’t need to be connected to everyone at all times of the day. If you leave your email client running while you’re trying to work, as soon as that next new message comes in, you’ll get distracted. The constant barrage of new incoming email will break you concentration and make a project that would normally take only an hour of focused attention take four or five times as long.

Check It Infrequently

Once you’ve managed to turn your email client off, resist the temptation to keep turning it back on all day. Checking your email once or twice a day is plenty – really.

Schedule Email Time

If you typically get a lot of email correspondence that you need to reply to throughout the day, then schedule half an hour or an hour as replying to email time. Take care of all the email you need to reply to at once. You’ll find that by being able to put your focused attention to taking care of email, your replies will be thought out better, and you’ll be able to get all of your email taken care of far more quickly and efficiently.

Spam Filters

A good spam filter really can be a productivity tool. Fortunately, they’re readily available and surprisingly accurate these days. Put one on your inbox so that you’re not spending your time trying to filter out all the spam before you ever start replying to the legitimate emails.

Get A Personal Assistant Or Customer or Email Support Canada

If you really get a lot of email and a lot of it doesn’t require your personal attention – i.e. someone trained in your business could just as easily reply to it, then get yourself a personal assistant or customer support person who will take care of almost all the email and only forward the essential messages to you. This will free up your time to focus on far more important tasks like finding more customers and making money.

source:ezinearticles.com