I have learned my essential email habits the hard way. Just like many others I dealt with email related stress daily. I was overwhelmed but I have decided to learn how to manage my email so that it does not manage me. The email habits I present to you are universal and easy to implement, regardless of your work position. Just like with any other habit it is best to fight the old one by implementing the new healthier one. Give it a try. One by one and you’ll see the results fast.

1. Essential
Email
Habits to Boost Your Productivity
PRODUCTIVITY
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2. Essential Email Habits to Boost Productivity
I have learned my essential email habits the hard way. Just like many others I dealt with
email related stress daily. I was overwhelmed but I have decided to learn how to
manage my email so that it does not manage me. The email habits I present to you are
universal and easy to implement, regardless of your work position. Just like with any
other habit it is best to fight the old one by implementing the new healthier one. Give it a
try. One by one and you’ll see the results fast.
Your Èspresso Guy – Peter
www.1882.com.au

3. Schedule and limit email processing times
Keeping email open and checking it frequently is totally counter productive. One
of my essential email habits is scheduling “email processing time”. It’s not the
same as “email reading time” though. I open my email and process it quickly. I
turn emails into tasks, reference material and calendar events where they belong
instead of reading through them. #1

4. #2
Decide quickly and take action
Email management is about making decisions fast. I’ve learned to act quick. I
open an email and I make a quick decision based on my altered GTD
methodology. Turn email into ‘to dos’, calendar events, reference material or
trash them. Simple!

5. I always keep my calendar open when I work on my emails. Why? Because
this way I can easily turn some things into planned events. #3
Plan your time and add things to the calendar

6. The key ones that I use to make email management more efficient are
‘gi’ to go back to the inbox, ‘a’ for archive, Shift-3 to delete, ‘c’ for
compose, ‘r’ for reply, ‘f’ for forward, ‘a’ to reply to all, ‘gs’ to go to my
starred messages, Tab Return when I’m composing a message to send
and archive it. #4
Use keyboard shortcuts whenever you can

7. I challenge myself to answer all emails with 1-5 sentences. Keeping
emails short means it’s quick to reply. I have also observed that people
usually adjust quickly to my communication and most often they are
grateful they don’t have to wade through an essay to get the key
information. #5
Keep your emails short and sweet

8. Instead of looking for my todos that are mixed in with all kinds of other
things, making it hard to figure out what needs to be done, I turn every
actionable email into a task on a simple to do list. #6
Turn emails into tasks quickly

9. I instantly archive all the emails I’ve read or/and acted upon. This means that
if I read an email and don’t act on it, it disappears from my inbox. #7
Keep your inbox tidy and archive all you can

10. turn all actionable emails into tasks and to turn all the reference
material emails into… reference material . So if someone would
send me something to read I open the link and add it to
Instapaper or Pocket to read later. Actually Instapaper or Evernote
work best for me… #8
Bookmark, read later or leave for reference

11. Once I’ve decided to stick to my scheduled email time, I also made a
conscious decision to keep email closed once it’s done. To brake the
habit of constant checking it I have also decided to turn off all the
notifications. #9
Close email when done and skip notifications

12. Those were
Essential Email Habits to Boost
Your Productivity
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14. PHOTO CREDITS
By Alejandro Escamilla
Photo Credit: @Doug88888 via Compfight cc
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Photo Credit: Photography by Tiwago via Compfight cc
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