Many of you are coming back from some time off, and are already dreading how much e-mail is in your inbox. No question, it’s an issue. Here are my top 7 ways to handle a large volume of unread e-mail.
- Delete it all. While I personally don’t have the guts to do this very often myself, a surprising number of people employ this strategy. “If it’s important, they’ll send it again or call,” they say. You take a risk with this. A compromise might be to do a quick search for people (or issues) you wanted to hear from and then delete the rest.
- Sort by sender; delete the easy ones. Sorting is definitely your friend. I recommend first sorting by sender. Then you can delete the automatic announcement e-mails your organization sends out or other e-mails in that vein. Perhaps you get daily automatic statuses or logs. They can go. I recommend deleting these first because it’s quick, it reduces your volume, and helps you feel less overwhelmed.
- Prioritize based on sender. Now that they’re grouped by sender, and you’ve deleted the easy ones, look at the ones your boss (or major customer) sent while you were gone. If you are the boss, look for the ones from your immediate subordinates. Or if you’re a solopreneur, look for the ones from your top clients or prospects. You may wish to transfer some of these into a folder for viewing later.
- Prioritize, part 2. If you left someone in charge while you were out, I hope you arranged for that person to leave you with a “here’s what happened while you were gone” e-mail. Look for that. Let it guide you in finding your highest priorities.
- Sort by conversation. Next, sort by conversation (or subject). Look through this for the hottest topics, particularly the ones your boss may have e-mailed about, or the ones in your “while you were out” e-mail. Once you have a sense of priority, read the most recent e-mail in the highest priority subject thread first. This way, you’re seeing the most current information.
- Respond to the fires. If there’s something you need to respond to immediately, do so. Better yet, consider picking up the phone just to be sure you understand the situation before you send an e-mail.
- Continue to delete or file. Once you have a handle on priority and have taken care of any immediate fires, continue reviewing the e-mail trails in priority order by subject, starting with the most recent one in the next-highest priority subject. Delete or file as appropriate.
Using these techniques, I could get through a large e-mail queue (in the hundreds) in about half an hour. I hadn’t read everything, but I had a good handle on what had happened while I was gone, and what needed attention.
Tip: Ask your staff to guess how much unread e-mail you have in your queue, and award a free fancy coffee to the person who comes the closest. This is a way to let them know how much you’re dealing with, but without complaining about it.