Tips on managing high volume emails (Part 1)
Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 10:59AM I get a lot of emails, a lot!
In order to keep my sanity (and to run my business efficiently), it's pretty essential to keep on top of of your email, especially when running a service related business. This has two benefits:
- Firstly, people are really amazed if they receive a response to an email in a timely fashion. I can usually respond to an email within a couple of hours, even a couple of minutes in some cases. This sets you apart immediately as someone who is efficient and on top of things - a real boon.
- Secondly, it gives you peace of mind and can de-stress you. It's only one element in a number of things, but knowing you've on top of your email and might have even reached the holy grail of "Inbox Zero", it certainly gives you a lift.
So this post is just a brief summary of some of the things I do to keep on top of my emails.
I'll split it into several parts so I don't spend all morning writing this blog post! In this first part, I'll look at some of the mechanisms that I use, in future posts, I'll cover some of the applications.
Single InBox - All my emails from legacy systems and Gmail are all forwarded to a single MobileMe mail account. This allows me to see all emails in a single place and I don't need to keep switching email accounts. It also allows me to see all my email from anywhere in a single mailbox on my iPhone.
iPhone Triage - I've heard a lot of people complaining about accessing emails on the iPhone. I've never had an issue and find it's a tremendous tool for triaging your email. You can quickly scan and read through new emails in your inbox. If an email doesn't need a response, it's really simple to move the email from the inbox into an Archive mailbox with a few simple clicks. Read it, file it, just get it out of the inbox. If it does need a response, I tend to leave it in the inbox, and respond when I get back to my desk or the laptop.
IMAP - Apples MobileMe is an IMAP mail system in that all the emails are stored on the server and are accessible via my iPhone, the web, my laptop or my desktop. If I read an email on one machine, those changes are replicated back to the server and if I move to another machine, the email shows as read on that machine.
Apple Mail Rules - Rules are a fantastic way to handle email automatically. I've a number of rules set up based on various parameters such as the senders email addresses, words contained in the subject, all sort of things. The rules are implemented to process email that doesn't need a direct response and move it out of the inbox. The rules can either move the emails to specific mailboxes or more recently I've been starting to tag emails. With having a MobileMe account, all my rules are replicated across all my desktop machines.
24 Hour Processing - Because I rely on automated rules (plus additional spam filtering) to keep my inbox fairly clean and only have emails that need to be read or actioned, it's useful to keep the rules running 24 hours a day. The issue is that the rules engine runs locally on the desktop machines, not centrally on the MobileMe server. To get around this I've taken a fairly "non green" approach by ensuring one of my desktop machines are running 24 hours a day. Consequently, if I'm out and about, and check my email via the iPhone, I see only emails that need to be seen in my inbox. Non urgent or informational emails are archived by the rules engine back at base. And because it's IMAP based, all email clients see the changes!
I'll do another post tomorrow on some of the other tools and techniques I use to keep on top of my email.
PS By the way, I'm no productivity expert so be gentle with me, after all, I'm no Merlin Mann :-)
Productivity in Daily Post
Reader Comments (5)
Don,
Very nice post. I'm so glad to see that (so far) I have the exact email system as yours. It took me a while to finalize the way I process emails but I think this is the best way.
can't wait for the 2nd part.
Cheers,
Ofir
Don -- Do you have your IMAP mail copied to a local Mac so you can use MailSteward to archive it? Just one of your Macs instead of all of them? Then this would be the one you run MailSteward on?
Also, do Mail's Rules work only on messages that have been copied to the local Mac? Am I correct that they don't work on the server?
Very helpful, Don. I use Gmail IMAP with a laptop, a desktop, an iPhone and an occasional web browser on a public or friend's computer. IMAP is wonderful.
Dave P.
Yes - just running MailSteward on one of the desktops.
Yes - only on the local machine - shame really!
Great tips Don! I implement most of your strategies, but because I'm a laptop only household, I don't have the advantage of keeping my rules running 24/7. Though it is one of many reasons I've thought of picking up an inexpensive MacMini for a home media center/server of sorts.
My problems would be solved if I could get Mobile Me to implement server-side rules and decent Spam filtering. Sounds like this would help a lot of folks as well. I occasionally drop them a line at apple.com/feedback and hope one day we'll see an update.
Well concur a good post and it's nice to see that I am not alone in my approach. Looking forward to the next installment.