Inbox (1072)

…and counting.

If the sight of that little bold number next to your inbox makes you cringe, you may be suffering from a case of flooded email inbox.  These days, many of us are drowning in a seemingly insurmountable sea of electronic messages.  We tread water as best we can, yet new waves of important messages always seem to wash over us, preventing us from attending to those week-old messages with the little red flags next to them.  To try to cut back on the message deluge, we check email before we go in to the office.  We check email after we get home.  We even check email on vacation, but that number of new messages still seems to multiply at an alarming rate.  It feels as though we may never truly get our heads above water.  But take heart, seafarers—there is a way to brave these rough email waters.

Check out these tips for successfully navigating a flooded inbox:

• Stop compulsively checking email.  We know, it sounds counterintuitive to attend less to a problem that is constantly getting worse.  But how productive are you really being when you’re browsing email and you stop to answer a call, have a snack, or check Facebook?  To make the most of your time with your email inbox, give it your full attention for a span of time every day.  Depending on the size of your backlog, set aside the first and last 30–60 minutes of your day to only check email.  Then forget about your inbox.  We know that’s a tough task for many of you who are used to constantly checking your e-leash, but give it a try and you’ll see how some dedicated email time can make your messaging habits more efficient.
• Prioritize based on importance.  While critical messages will require a response by day’s end, others can wait until week’s end.  It’s your job to quickly assess what messages may be important and what messages are not so important, like triage for your email.  This will be easier to do if you’re in tune with deadlines and current projects that may need your input.
• Keep your responses succinct.  Everyone’s time is valuable.  You probably don’t want to take 15 minutes to craft a formal masterpiece of an email that could be sent off less formally in 2 minutes, any more than the recipient wants to read your 15-minute masterpiece.  So for your routine correspondence, or for continuing correspondence in an email string, try to compose your email more like a text message.  Keep spelling and grammar intact, but skip the salutation and valediction, since you’re already acquainted.  Then get right to the point.
• Set realistic expectations.  Since we’re all busy making use of our valuable time, gone is the expectation that an email will get a response immediately after it’s sent.  The truth is, we have meetings and conference calls and project deadlines taking up our workdays (and ideally, we’re only checking our email at the start and end of the day, right?).  It’s just not realistic anymore to expect an instantaneous response.  A couple of days to a week is now an acceptable time frame to respond to an email.  If you’re unexpectedly delayed in responding to a message, you can always send a quick note about when that person can expect a more detailed response.  And if you’re waiting for a reply, please don’t waste your time constantly refreshing your inbox; knowing when to use email is one of the best ways to cut back on inbox clutter.  Sometimes a text message or a phone call would better suit your needs.