As a general observation, many people don’t use software properly and E-mail clients are an excellent example; where, – over time – users develop unsound methods for managing their inboxes. They are enabled to do so because of their “free” (i.e. spied on) providers proclivity to give them a ridiculous amount of space to hoard their messages. Couple that with robust search tools in their “webmail” and you have a recipe that encourages inefficient e-mail practices. (So they can sell you to advertisers.)
According to this report, professionals (like YOU) spend an average of 28% of your time on E-mail. Thus, allowing your e-mail server & client manage the influx of messages would clearly save most professionals (like YOU) at least an hour a day. How you ask? Well…
First, you should have separate e-mails for work and home (personal) and access them from different devices. That will ensure people you love only show up on your phone and people you work with only show up on your laptop/desktop. Next, they recommend (and IRQ concurs) that you should move e-mails out of your inbox as you read them, that way you won’t run the risk of reading them again later. Next, you should instruct your e-mail client to check for messages once an hour. That way your client will only notify you of new messages on the hour, when you can dedicate 5 to 10 minutes to the new arrivals. Then, instead of filing the read e-mails away in a plethora of folders, decide on three actions to take with each email: Archive, Respond or Task it.
Archive is easy, most clients have a simple button to select and the e-mail is gone. Respond is easy too, create a folder labeled respond, then check the folder each morning to prioritize responses or delegate the response to someone else. Task it requires a good client (IRQ recommends eMclient), where the e-mail is turned into a task on your calendar where it can be tracked until completion. Finally, you should have filters on the e-mail server that flag automated e-mails you want (like trade newsletters) and discard all spam and e-mails you don’t want (i.e a vender who won’t take no for an answer).
IRQ can help you implement these practices to help make your e-mail a much more effective tool for getting your work done. Once you’re on the right domain footing (e-mail & website) we can decide if your business would benefit from an ERP platform (IRQ recommends ODOO) to e-mail invoices to your clients and allow them to pay online with their credit or debit cards.