Wondering how to process email in your inbox?

Looking for some helpful time management tips to help speed up your email processing times?

You’re sitting in front of your computer. 

You open your email inbox and see lots of new email messages.

Your heart starts to race.

You need to get through those emails, but you also need to do your other work.

Where should you begin? What’s the best method for processing all those messages?

In this post, you’ll find some pointers to help you be more productive when it comes to reading and dealing with email.

Sort emails by sender.

This is by far the single easiest way to get a grip on your emails.

Sorting messages by sender cuts down on the time it takes for you to process whether or not an email is urgent or important.

You can easily look for, and read, messages from your clients, supervisor, colleagues, vendors, and other key contacts.

Meantime, you can conveniently ignore items such as weather alerts, store coupons, and newsletters for the time being.

Learn how to categorize emails.

One of the biggest problems with emails is that they are not “one size fits all.”

Hardly anyone uses an email template while composing or replying to messages.

This can quickly cause some chaotic inbox situations!

Fortunately, you can be prepared for this.

For the most part, each email that enters your inbox can be placed in a certain category.

Each category requires a different task or action on your part.

Do any of these six email categories sound familiar?

Category A. Emails you can reply to right away

These emails do not require much thought or effort. You can answer a question or query off the top of your head, or quickly look up the information that’s been requested.

Category B. Emails that require additional work

These emails include small, medium, or large assignments. Basically, you have to set aside some time to do the requested work or assignment before you can email back a response.

Category C. Emails that require other peoples’ input

These emails require you to check in with a colleague, vendor, supervisor, or someone in another department or company. You need to get their feedback and/or thoughts on something so you can properly reply back to the email.

Category D. Emails that need to be read

These emails include newsletters, articles, reports, etc. Some of these emails may or may not be urgent, depending on the sender.

Category E. Emails that you need to think about

These include an invitation to an optional meeting or event,  an email asking your personal opinion about a course of action…basically, you need some time to noodle over the contents of an email.

Category F. Emails that need to be browsed

These emails include items like alerts, coupons, discounts, deals, and tickets. It doesn’t take much effort to read through these items, but it still takes time to do so.

Once you become familiar with the different email categories, you can better process each email according to its category.

You can sort emails in your head, or if you’ve got a lot of messages to deal with, you can add a little color flag next to each email corresponding to each of the six email categories.

Make a plan of action.

Okay, now that you’ve sorted your emails, it’s time to take action.

Here’s one process you can follow*:

1. Reply back to Category A emails.

Go through your messages and reply back to them quickly.

2. Get started on contacting people related to Category C emails.

Make a phone call, send a text, write an email… the idea is to get the process started.

3. Make note of Category B emails work in your planner or schedule.

These are now your tasks to be done today, or over the next few days. You may find it helpful to reply back to the email sender to confirm the assignment, ask a question, or let them know you understand the request.

4. Schedule time in your calendar or planner to review Category D emails.

You can then read and review these items, offline, without being distracted by incoming emails. Try using an article or reading apps to save newsletter items, articles, blog posts, and more for later.

5. Make a note to follow-up with Category E and F emails.

Jot down a deadline in your calendar to come back to these items. You’ll give yourself some time to think over things, and can quickly process those to be browsed items when you’re not so busy.

*But what about emails that are some combination of the above categories?

Keep in mind, the above is only a general guideline.

You’ll naturally come across a wide variety of email category combinations, and some may require two, three or more steps, so you can properly process them.

The aim of this post is to simply show you that most emails can be organized into general categories.

For the most part, you’ll want to spend most of your email processing time in Categories A, B, C, and the balance in D, E, and F.

Close that email inbox.

Once you’ve processed your emails, it’s time to log out of your email program.

You can’t work efficiently when you’re constantly being distracted by the “ping” of incoming emails!

Be sure to exit out of any open windows, as well as to completely log out of your email program. 

How about you? How do you tackle the emails in your inbox? What would you like to improve when it comes to processing emails on a daily basis? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!