Email overwhelm? Five tips to control your email and create a better day

Are you ready to break free from the email headache, once and for all?

Here are five tips to dominate your email and create more time to work on the projects you love.

1. Do a self assessment.

Taking control of your email starts with you.

The average person receives 80 emails per day and they stack and stack and compound on a daily. Are you missing important messages? Are you missing out on potential clients? Perhaps it is a missed deadline or even worse, a contractual deadline that has now passed.

Here are a few tips as you do a self assessment.

First, using a notebook or your computer notepad, write down the email addresses that you own. Identify which email is used for business and which are used for newsletters, digital receipts, and the endless stream of promotions you have accumulated since 2010 (you know what I am talking about!), and which is used for important emails such as insurance contracts and tax documents.

Second, admit to yourself that allowing this “email monster” to continue, a term coined years ago by an unknown author, is truly a center of chaos in your world.

Choose to take control, starting now.

2. For your business emails, it is time to commit to a personal domain.

It is time to treat your business like a business!

Make this a priority within the next seven days to set up a personal domain.

I personally use Proton Mail (and love it for so many reasons, including its end to end encryption). They have free plans that are an excellent starting point for entrepreneurs, business owners, and solo-preneurs, as well as an affordable paid plan.

My productivity doubled once I converted over to a mail server that is used strictly and exclusively for business.

As my gift to you, use this link for a free month of Mail Plus or try the free product.

Starting on February 1, 2024 email providers like Google and Yahoo are making the email filters even more strict. This means that for anyone sending regular newsletters or marketing emails will have an even more difficult time reaching your inbox, let alone people who you actually are doing business with.

My experience as a licensed real estate agent has revealed this clearly.

Contracts delivered from other agents go into my junk folder.

When I was utilizing Gmail for business, my contracts would go into the junk folder.

This is problematic for every business person across the globe and with the emergence of AI, that knows you better than YOU know you, the growing challenge of deliverability will be a growing headache!

What is a personal domain?

Quite simply, it is your name at your business name or full name, or whatever creative vibe you want to use. It should, however, match your business website.

For example, my personal domain is hannabederson. The email is then [email protected].

You can use any email provider you choose to. I have found Proton Mail to be the most efficient in the marketplace.

Once you have established a personal domain, here are several rules that you can set up.

1. This email is for business use only. NO newsletters, receipts, logins, nothing should go to this email other than business correspondence.
2. This is NOT an email to publish at the bottom of your website. Keep it sacred to be used for business only.
3. You can establish additional email addresses associated with the domain, to be delivered to your assistant or you can use rules to place the emails into a folder.

For example, email addresses may include:

admin@ your domain

contracts@ your domain

reception@ your domain

After you have completed the set up of your business email, here is the next tip.

4. Block off one hour on an evening to begin paring down the email monster.

Start with your current business email.

Begin to mark all as read.

This could take time, but it will be worth the effort.

The order of priority is as follows:

First, business email.

Second, family email.

Third (and most challenging), the messy chaotic newsletter clogged junk folder that you haven’t checked since the Clinton administration. Seriously!?

Calendar the time over a week to get through this process, to which you now show fewer emails.

PRO TIP

Do not waste your time with putting items into folders. This is a never ending slide into unproductive work that will block your creative energy and keep you stuck for a very long time.

Calendar three strict times per day (maybe even two times per day) to check email on an ongoing basis. Limit these times to 15 minutes or less.

This is your maintainance schedule. Choose a schedule that works for you. It could be morning, afternoon and evening.

Check your emails in the same order every day. Business, family and then newsletter and junk email. Clear out all emails by unsubscribing or responding. Feel no guilt for unsubscribing to every single newsletter arriving in your inbox, keeping only those that you read on a regular basis or that provide value to you. You can even unsubscribe from my emails. My feelings will never be hurt.

This is how you take control of your life!

PRO TIP

I use Sharran Srivatsaa’s expert tips in his productivity playbook. Every morning I take five minutes to flag important emails, delete junk, and unsubscribe. Then my email remains closed until after noon. This allows me to focus my efforts towards profit producing tasks.

Now that you have an established business email (NO LONGER GMAIL!), and your inboxes are consistently at very few new emails, it is time for your next adult move.

5. Delagate! Delagate! Delegate!

This statement from Codie Sanchez, business strategist and global leader, was convicting and revealing.

“You don't have a business if:

• You don't have SOPs
• You are the only manager
• You still do all the selling
• You don't have a P&L
• You can't go 2 weeks not reading emails”

Your purpose in life is much bigger than responding to email!

To be a leader, you have to uncouple yourself from the drudgery of email and delegate immediately. Get your systems in place, and delegate to your assistant, your teenager, a virtual assistant, or find someone who is trusted that you can pay for their time.

Are you ready to free yourself from the email shackles?

Follow these five tips.

1. Do a self assessment
2. Get a business domain
3. Pare down the email monster
4. Set your daily email rhythm
5. Delegate now

If you are ready for your own domain and a secure encrypted end to end email, try Proton Mail.

As a gift to you, try for free or take advantage of one month of free mail plus.

By controlling the email monster, and ultimately letting go of email through delegation, you can focus on the projects that matter, the relationships you cherish, and the creative space that you wish for.

Follow me online @Hanna Bederson for more practical tips and helpful advice to help you create your best life.