The Tipping List

Managing the E-mail Deluge: Part 2

You've read it - now what do you do with it?

By: Michele Woodward

Last week, we talked about managing e-mail "inflow" - that is, all the messages flooding your inbox on a daily basis. Now let's talk about outflow - or what you do with the messages once you start opening them.

1. Ask yourself three questions when reading your e-mails to help you determine the appropriate course of action:
a. Can I eliminate this?
b. Can I do it another time?
c. Can someone else do it?

2. Don't use your inbox as a filing cabinet. Back in the dark ages (even before the fax machine, if you can believe it), there was an organizational school of thought best summed up by the phrase "touch it once." The idea was, when a letter landed in the inbox on your desk (how quaint), the goal was to touch it once: read it and decide whether it needed to be filed, thrown out or acted upon. Whatever you did, you didn't let paper hang around your inbox.

You can apply this same principle to virtual paper too. Read the message and decide to either do something with it or delete it, delegate it to someone else, call a meeting to address it, print it out and post it on the employee bulletin board - whatever. Just remember the rule: touch it once, do something with it, then let it go. (Note: It's a lot easier to incorporate this approach when you follow #3 from last week.)

3. Only you can decide what's important. The immediacy of e-mail creates a false sense of urgency. But only you can triage your e-mail and determine what's important and needs to be handled immediately, and what's less critical and can wait. Many things clamor for your attention during the day - and honey, if you don't decide what matters, the clamor decides for you. And the clamor doesn't always know what's best.

Michele Woodward is a master certified life coach and the author of Lose Weight, Find Love, De-Clutter & Save Money: Essays on Happier Living .