What seems to happen at the start of every new year is people have reflected on the previous year and make conscious decisions to do better by implementing healthy, productive choices which they hope will make them happier and wealthier.
Usually, after the first weekend in January, most those choices have fallen by the way side and life is back to what it was a few weeks prior.
Never again
I too have fallen victim to this over the years, and decided a number of years ago to never again give myself a New Years resolution but rather annual goals. In that way, come December, I can fix everything I have not done.
I have however figured out a great productivity hack that helped me tremendously in 2017 and will share with everyone now in 2018 because I want everyone to be as productive as I am right now.
Email management
Managing emails is something everyone in business just must understand and master. It’s as simple as that.
Further, it is a sure fire way to be efficient. It is a two pronged approach that I leverage on a daily basis.
**Read, understand and respond to one mail at a time. **Don’t jump the queue and read something else, complete that email once read. If you can reply once read, do it. If you need more time and more info, flag this email for later use and set up a time up every week to review flagged emails. Focus on what you planned to do, and respond to other people in the time you had planned for them. This will ensure you give it your full attention and quality it deserves when you reply; and
Create a folder in Outlook. Then, create a rule to move all emails that you are CC’d in to that folder. Again, setup a time once a week to review those emails. Don’t waste your time reading other peoples issues, focus on you and what you need to get done.
Those two mail hacks will save you a huge amount of time and allow you to master the art of the inbox.