Take Charge of Your Time and Improve Your Focus By Managing Your Email Inbox More Efficiently

Emails are essential in corporate communication. We’ve grown used to opening our mailbox at the office first time in the morning and to check whether we’ve received any urgent email over the weekend or on our way back home. However, checking our emails every hour and making sure that we are on top of every single electronic message we receive can get against our efforts to successfully manage our time and perform the tasks we are supposed to do. That said, efficient email management can help us be in better control of our time and improve our focus on what is really important.

Managing Our Inbox

Being in charge of a large team, being responsible of a department or working on different projects at the same time can mean having a full inbox every morning that doesn’t seem to empty any time during the day.

Replying to emails, following-up on previous communications, forwarding messages, sharing documents, files and reports with colleagues and superiors, copying colleagues into emails, and so on do not contribute to efficient email management. Attachments can get lost or the most updated version of them is never sent, not everybody is included in conversations as needed and long chains of emails are easily created.

Creating folders and tasks and flagging important emails is usually not enough. Smart email sharing software is an innovative tool that managers rely on and that has proven to be helpful for those willing to manage their mailbox efficiently. It allows to save time in copying and forwarding emails, prevents information for getting lost in inboxes and makes relevant email conversations available to coworkers in shared channels.

But whichever method you choose to manage your inbox, let’s see what the advantages of efficient email management are.

Increased Productivity

One of the major advantages of efficient email management is an increased productivity. To begin with, spam is significantly reduced and teams have instant access to important documents and communications without having to dig deep in their mailboxes. This contributes to a faster completion of projects of course and to a better understanding of tasks, responsibilities and duties.

Relevant conversations can be accessed at any time and all or part of them can be shared with certain individuals in only a few clicks.

Efficient email management also allows employees to spend less time reviewing emails and more time working on their tasks assigned.

Most managers also express that having established an efficient email management policy in their companies have contributed to fight against the depressive Monday-morning-mood that many of their employees experienced when they arrived at the office after the weekend and discovered hundreds of emails awaiting for them in their computers.

An increased productivity also means that employees have more time to participate in corporate projects, bring up new ideas and contribute to a better corporate environment.

Decreased Cost Of Litigation

Efficient email management allows employees, manager and IT responsibles to save important emails, files and documents for years on end without having to worry about occupying precious mailbox storage space.

In case of litigation or if your company is asked to provide proof of email communication held with a client many years ago, your legal department will be pleased to know that you have it available.

Decreased Cost of Compliance

Since corporate scandals have triggered a new wave of legislation aimed at increasing transparency of business practices, a good email management system can decrease the cost of compliance by simplifying and streamlining the entire process.

Decreased Exposure to Security Threats

Viruses delivered via email can expose important company threats and the financial losses from even a single such breach can be staggering. Sending emails with important attachments, forwarding emails, replying to them can end up exposing the company’s mailboxes to viruses and identity thefts. A professional email management system can contribute to reducing the number of emails being forwarded while making sure that the right people are on board important communications.