Managing your email is one of the most important tasks you can do to become successful in the fast pace of the 21st Century. Overlooked as tedious work and put at the bottom of the to-do list for more important matters to take precedence, managing email accounts is not something too many people discuss. In this article I will tell you why it is one of the most productive ways you can use your time by preventing problems later. If you have ever had a problem with duplicate contacts in Outlook, or have been unable to find an important email in a timely fashion...or even ever... then you know what a time-wasting hassle a cluttered email inbox is.
A clean email inbox reflects the work you are doing. If your inbox is messy and un-kept, it reflects other problems that you may have in your business. Though it reflects a greater problem, one of the great things about email is that it is a concrete and immediate place where you can begin to get organized. Once you have control of your inbox you will feel as though you have accomplished something during the day. Set aside a few minutes a week to keep up your email inbox and you will find you win back that time and more throughout the week as you quickly are able to use your inbox as more than just a barely searchable database and to the social contact and communication tool it has the potential for.
Another reason to keep your email inbox clean is that it helps in avoiding making costly errors. Everybody has a problem with duplicate contacts in Outlook at some point or another. If you haven't had the problem yet then you would do well to take control of your inbox before it happens. Duplicate contacts in Outlook can mess up your day, forcing you to select your intended recipient every time you want to send an email instead of being able to use the auto-populate feature we know and love for example. Alternatively, you may end up sending something to your recipient's personal account that was intended for immediate attention via their business account.
For these two reasons, it is important to invest just a few minutes each week on your email inbox with some basic maintenance. We are not talking about a long list of tasks, just keep a couple of archive folders and create a habit of using them. If you have email from friends, put them in the friends folder and keep another one for family. This division of the emails will enable you to find a balance in your email that will help you focus more time on work. Working with focus enables you to spend less time at the office and more time at home with the people you love.
Which brings me to the critical point of keeping your email inbox clean and why successful people almost always have tidy in-boxes, because the more you spend time with the people you love, or doing the activities that you love, the more productive you will be. Whether in the office, at the ballpark, or just a quiet dinner with the people you love. That's what it's all about in the end, isn't it?
Organizing your duplicate contacts might be a small thing but its value could greatly impact your day-to-day life. For your convenience, http://www.scrubly.com offers free scanning of your email for you to know which things need to be done.
