What are the best email management practices for executives?

I always clear my emails first thing in the morning as it sets me up for the day. Work in chronological order and you will develop a routine Not all are important so a fair few can be filed or deleted. I always reply to everyone who requests it as they have taken the time to contact me even if it's "thanks for the email but I do not need these services at the moment ". It takes seconds. Routine is key and good practices become habit forming

The FATCAT acronym has always stuck with me. For any email in your inbox you could: File it, for reference Action it, if it takes less than 2 minutes Task - move it to task manager Calendar - move it there if it’s time related eg meeting details Assign it - delegate Trash it! I learned this as a graduate & it has stuck with me ever since. Do I always follow it? No. Do I feel better when I do? Yes!

Personally, I am a big fan of the 4D method. I have been following this particular method for a long time, and it has effectively helped me deal with emails quite efficiently. As I manage a global team and get emails from different time zones, I sort them as per priority in the morning. I choose to take action on the ones that are urgent and need my attention. I keep some important ones for later, as they will not need immediate attention. The rest I delegate and delete as per importance. One more thing that has helped me a lot is using Outlook for my emails, as I can access and respond to all my emails from one place. It is easier to manage for me instead of accessing cross-platform emails.

What I have found useful is to answer emails in different timings during the day, I mean in 3 to 4 slots of the day and use the rest of the time in quality meetings with customers and stakeholders to understand the challenges of the business and the way forward. That leaves you being focused on emails and meetings.

Unsubscribing from anything you don't need littering your in-box. If I wake up on the West Coast to 300 messages, it's already a job to figure out which 50 of them are completely frivolous. Get into the habit of scrolling down to the bottom of newsletters you didn't sign up for, pitches, marketing announcements to the teeny tiny "unsubscribe" link to clean up your in-box. Then, respond to what you need to. Not every message requires a reply. Ask yourself, "Do I really need to respond to / weigh in on this?"

In my experience, creating folders and sub-folders by topic was very useful. I created folders for each recurring topic and would create a new folder as a new topic arose. On most days, I would receive between 500 to 800 emails, copied on many, some directly to me as well. I set forth a “rule” for myself- to only have 30 emails in my inbox at a time. All other emails were placed in their respective folders- showing as unread if I had not responded or handled the matter. In this fashion, my email inbox was easily managed and I did not miss deadlines and so forth

Use filters to route e-mails to appropriate folders and labels. This automatically reduces clutter in executive inboxes and allows for e-mail reviewing at the appropriate time.

An email is often used to keep people informed or sharing in a wider audience news, updates or actions needed. I tend to see email less and less as the source for important stuff and I banned emails if there are urgent topics - the staff will understand that - as they can get much faster responses by calling or ping over sms, WhatsApp or similar - of course to share updates later emails are okay, but expecting that a green light at MS Teams means you are idle is wrong, creates micro stress and creates a inefficient culture

Press Delete with caution. Today I was able to pull up a few customer feedback surveys from the past 18 months which acted as proof I was trying to resolve an issue with our cell service. Had I deleted these messages I wouldn't have had the evidence I needed to prove my case that I had made repeated attempts to get $400 credit per line when I switched services. It is easy to get into Delete mode, but be thoughtful about future instances where mundane emails with vendors might actually hold value.

Some things I do 1. I have 2 email folders "To" & "cc". Not addressed "to" me are depriortised. I hate CYB emails when "cc" to me - I don't look at them. 2. Be direct & be specific about the ask. Sometimes important to set context. Relevant when sending emails & equally so teams know what to send 3. Deal with emails that require a straight forward answer quickly. The others I flag 4. Found a very useful feature in Outlook - when one flags an email it goes into the "To Do" tool. I use this a lot for the ones I need to spend time reading and this includes mails sent out as a follow up as well 5. One thing I don't do consistently - always important to acknowledge an email (either positive or negative response) when one has received an email

1) Act or Delegate. Also, when sending to multiple recipients, indicate the expectations from the respective persons 2) Save important attachments on OneDrive in respective folders 3) Delete unnecessary emails and emails with big attachments

Great points! As an executive, it’s valuable to not only analyze one's “Inbox” but also be mindful of one's “Sent” folder. It helps us: 1. Shift from “victim mindset”. Instead of focusing on how many emails others send us, we begin to monitor how many emails we initiate. This helps us reduce email overload for our teams and partners. 2. Evaluate best practices: We can actually analyze our response times, approach, noise-to-signal ratio. Our team relies on us for context, guidance and decisions and our "Sent" folder can help us understand how effectively we are delivering on it. 3. Build good habits: Given we control our “Sent” folder, working on it is likely to help us build good habits (improve response time, quality of response etc.)

An under utilized strategy for email is to ignore it. If this makes you anxious even thinking about it, then it's time to run a little experiment. The next time you are on a week long holiday, set an out of office that lets people know you won't be reading emails from this period and will be archiving them to start fresh when you return. Suggest they set a note to contact you upon your return. When you get back, put all the email in a folder and start with a clean inbox. If it matters, the person will email you upon your return or when they don't get follow up. You would be surprised how many emails resolve themselves when ignored! Once this experiment builds your confidence, build a habit of archiving all unread messages once a week.

Another email management tip is to turn off notifications. You can also pause your inbox Boomerang does a wonderful job with this. It can also schedule emails for you. You can also avoid over subscribing to newsletter and updates. Schedule a specific time to clean your inbox.

Subscription hygiene. - If you don't read a newsletter now, chances are you will not ever. Unsubscribe. - If you do not care about a platforms news and updates, it's wasted inbox energy. Unsubscribe. - News, tips, "save the dates", daily digests - be hyper selective of what makes it into your inbox. Unsubscribe!