how to effectively manage emails as tasks and follow ups?
I get too many emails a day. Most of these emails require sending email to other person to get them to do something or follow up. I flag those emails but the list keeps growing rapidly and things start falling through cracks. How do I effectively manage this?
My inbox is my todo list. All “done” items I put into separate folders and hope they don’t come back
If the email takes less than 2 mins do it immediately and flag the rest.
I archived all my emails older than 2 weeks and changed them in bulk to “Read”, then made several folders to archive the rest for easy reach: 1. Today 2. Follow-Up 3. Read Later 4. Projects with sub project folders 5. Resources - emails that come in handy Process: 1- Each evening I move emails to right folder. 2- In the morning I go thru all new emails and place them in right folders. 3 - Then start reviewing emails in “Today” and complete those or put in “FollowUp” if there’s nothing I can do right now. 4 - When I have free time I check out “Read Later”. 5 - I archive everything that I no longer need to worry about or doesn’t fit into a project/resources folder. 6 - at end of day I spend 5 minutes archiving or organizing whatever emails are still in today or Follow-up. If I want to start on it tomorrow, I put it in the Today folder. I started this process 2 weeks ago and it has made me so less anxious. I know I’m not missing something.
Those red flags would be my to-do list. Keep 30-45 mins everyday to act on them....set a daily reminder and adhere to it