Tip of the Week: Email Should Be A Tool--Here’s 3 Ways To Keep It Under Control

Email has been one of the primary correspondence methods for businesses for several years. In addition to communicating with your team, clients, and peers, emails also bring you the latest blog in a subscription, or sales and marketing messages from prospective vendors. With dozens of emails flowing in throughout your day, emails can become a distraction that results in a significant loss of productivity. These three tips can help you cut down on time that you waste when compulsively checking your emails.

Check Email Less
Do you find yourself compulsively checking your email even when you’re in the middle of something? Most people do - and it’s a huge time waster. Productivity is reduced at every interruption. The majority of emails you received aren’t going to be urgent or require an immediate response. To help you break the habit of checking your email multiple times when working on single project, try only checking your email when you’ve completed a task. If you have trouble quitting your bad email habits on your own, there are several applications available that can assist you with email time management.

Turn Off Notifications
Another way to give your productivity a little boost it to turn off notifications. There are certain times throughout your work day when your undivided attention is required. Pausing to glance at notifications every two minutes breaks focus - even if it’s just a second. According to the Harvard Business Review, “regaining our initial momentum following an interruption can take, on average, upwards of 20 minutes.”

Get Serious About Subscriptions and SPAM
For most people, work email accounts receive at least a few emails a day that are not really SPAM, but not really an important work correspondence, either. Things like blog subscriptions, sales emails, webinar invitations, and more might be worthy to read at some point but aren’t anything you need to see hit your Inbox. Filters and SPAM can be a great friend to productivity and prioritizing the emails you’ve received.

When it comes to email and SPAM filters, SCW can help you find the best solution for your business needs! Learn more about boosting productivity with email by calling us at (509) 534-1530.