You think your email inbox is bulging? Don't forget, the State Department has 55,000 pages of Hillary Rodham Clinton's correspondence to go through before releasing it next year.
So, OK, you're not that bad off, but there are ways to make it better, including organizing the setup of your email, going into your inbox with a plan and using programs to encourage better management.
“You want to take care of the important things,” said Maria Marsala, a financial adviser business coach at Elevating Your Business. “You don't want to be overwhelmed with a lot of garbage coming.”
Perhaps it's not as high as 50,000, but most professionals receive around 121 emails a day, according to Radicati Group Inc., a technology market research company. A few mindful pointers can keep advisers from getting lost in their cluttered inboxes.
Make folders: Ms. Marsala tells her clients to use different email addresses for different functions. She has an email address specifically for her clients, another for the newsletters she's signed up for and one more for emails that come from her website. The emails are all set up to one account where she can then filter.
Delete, delete, delete: It's OK to delete emails that are considered junk mail. By flagging them as spam or deleting them entirely, advisers can get back space in their inbox and focus on the messages that matter.
Don't jump right in: It's not pretending to be “out of the office," but not immediately checking emails upon getting into the office is a good thing. Ms. Marsala says advisers can get lost in the mix if they don't take their morning coffee away from their screen. Her suggestion is to figure out individually when is the best time to respond to emails.
Use apps: Relying on apps for uncluttering emails is a safe bet in maintaining a clean inbox. There are various apps that can make an adviser's email system not only manageable, but enjoyable, including apps that sending alerts for emails advisers wanted a reminder for and apps that make to do lists from their email accounts.
YOUR EMAIL PROGRAM
Some email programs set up an automatic default sorting system for their users. If an adviser doesn't want to create their own customizable folders, taking advantage of their program's default system could be another option to uncluttering the inbox.
Gmail, for example, divides users' emails into three folders: primary, social and promotion. Person-to-person emails are in primary, social media account notifications are put in social and business-to-customer emails are found in promotional.
Microsoft Outlook, another popular system for emails, is making their
Clutter feature the default setting next month. The feature allows advisers only to see high-priority messages until they choose to check out other folders containing the remaining messages.
