What is Email Productivity?
Email productivity is simply creating a system that enables you to be as productive as possible with all things to do with your mailbox.
Reading, responding, and sorting emails can take up to three hours a day for busy professionals. Instead of spending hours feeling stressed and overwhelmed with your inbox, learn some email productivity hacks to simplify life.
Not only will you stress less, but you will also have more time to do your actual work.
We will go through some email DON’Ts and some of the best email productivity tools and hacks to help you on your way to superb email efficiency (also learn more about how to get organized).
Best Email Productivity Tips
Before we dive into the tips that really work, here are a few things you should NOT do first:
- Checking emails first thing in the morning or late at night.
- Keeping notifications turned on.
- Responding out of hours.
- Replying straight away.
- Spending too much time on one message.
Doing any of the above can make you feel drained before your workday has even started. You will lose focus on the work you need to do, setting a bad tone for the rest of your busy day!
So, here are some of the best email productivity tips to get you started.
1. Using Time Blocking
Time blocking is essentially where you set a specific time of the day to do a certain task.
When it comes to emails, give yourself two or three different time blocks throughout the day to complete any tasks you need to get done (learn more about how to manage email overload effectively).
When you have finished your time period sorting through your messages, close the application. Don’t keep your emails open in your browser, or on your smartphone. This will only lead to distractions.
2. Turning off Notifications
For optimal email productivity, turn off your mail notifications to not get distracted. Be sure to stick to set times to respond and sort emails.
This way you can get your most important jobs finished first, with no stress, and no distractions.
3. Limiting Time Checking Emails
Using the Pomodoro technique is a great email productivity tip. Set a 25-minute timer every time you check your emails, once the timer is up, take a break, or go back to work.
Don’t forget the work you do comes before responding to emails. Anyone at the other end of a message can wait. Tick off your own to-do list first before worrying about your emails.
4. Creating Folders to Sort Emails
Creating separate folders to sort important emails or emails from VIPs helps you stay on track with whom you need to respond to first and helps keep your mailbox clean and tidy.
5. Using Rules to Automate Actions
Most mail service providers allow you to create rules to automate mundane tasks.
For example, within Google, you can automate which emails need to go into a certain folder, or which messages need archiving.
6. Using Email Productivity Tools
Email productivity apps and tools make some of the more time-consuming jobs so much easier.
- Wunderlist or other list creating apps: Create a to-do list within a separate app to avoid getting distracted looking at your inbox.
- Clean Email: The app will help you organise your incoming emails automatically (learn more about email manager apps) sending them to relevant folders, archive, or trash. It also has an easy-to-use Unsubscriber feature letting you opt out from all unwanted newsletters in a few clicks.
- EmailAnalytics: Visualise your mail activity. The tool integrates with Gmail and G Suite accounts and syncs with your email history, visualises it in intuitive charts, graphs, and tables.
7. Using Email Templates
Increase email productivity by using templates. If you often send the same or very similar emails, create a template. This saves you from having to rewrite the same thing repeatedly.
8. Responding Wisely
Before responding to a message, take a moment to think. Do I need to reply to this? How can I avoid further questions? Will a simple yes or no do?
By responding wisely, you save time worrying about what to send, or whether you should respond at all. Learn more about how to overcome email anxiety.
9. Organising Subscriptions
Subscriptions sometimes lead to a huge amount of spam and an extremely untidy mailbox. Unsubscribe, or delete any subscriptions you no longer want or need.
Clean Email’s Unsubscriber feature allows you to unsubscribe with just one click. You can check all your available subscriptions on one screen and choose any of them you no longer want to receive.
10. Achieving Inbox Zero
Inbox Zero is the ultimate dream.
This means you have nothing to respond to. Nothing waiting for you, and NO STRESS. Organise incoming messages into relevant folders, delete spam messages, block unwelcome senders, and opt out from marketing newsletters to reduce inbox clutter.
11. Deleting What You Don’t Need
Every three months, do a major sort of all emails you no longer need.
If you may need them in the future, or your messages hold important information, make sure you archive, not delete!
12. Setting Up Auto Responder
If you receive a message out of hours but don’t want to seem rude, set up an automated email response.
This automatically sends a message to your sender explaining why you cannot respond, and when you can.
Read our productivity hacks for entrepreneurs or learn more about email management tips here.
How Clean Email Can Support Email Productivity
Clean Email is a fantastic email productivity app, supporting a range of handy features that will enhance your productivity.
The Auto Clean feature allows you to move emails to archive, trash, or other folders automatically once they hit your inbox. Create a clean, streamlined, and stress-free mailbox!
How to create an Auto Clean Rule:
- Select a message within any Smart View or Inbox folder.
- Choose your action, for example ‘move to trash’.
- When the pop up appears, choose ‘Selected and future similar emails.’
This creates your Auto Clean rule to move your selected and future emails to trash. You can view your rules within the Auto Clean tab and make changes at any point.
The app also has a Smart Views feature. Smart Views are easy-to-use email bundles sorting relevant messages such as ‘Travel’, ‘Finance’, or ‘Social media notifications’. This way you can apply actions such as delete or archive to the whole group instead of managing messages one by one.
The app works hard to ensure your information is safe and secure. Your details are never shared, and your emails are safe with us!
Email Productivity Tips - FAQs
How is email productivity measured?
It is measured by several factors. For example, the number of emails sent and received, response rate, and the number of unread messages.
How can email increase productivity?
You can increase overall productivity via your emails by having a good system! An example of this is: respond within set times, set a time limit when focusing on emails, and easily find specific messages by sorting categories into folders.
What are the productivity tools of email?
Productivity tools for email include task management software, email organisers and reminders, apps creating custom automated rules to perform manual mail tasks automatically, etc.
How do I make my Gmail productive?
Make your Gmail productive by moving relevant emails to folders, unsubscribing from spam, and archiving or deleting old messages.
