This post was written by Jennifer
Spend Less Time On Email & More Time Blogging
The other day I posted my personal biggest time wasters while blogging. Today I’m posting some solutions I’m considering for email and moderating blog comments. I’m tacking these two time wasters together, because blog comments are one major source of email for me.
How I already save time on email:
Have decent email: I use Gmail for my major email account. I.e. anyone that matters gets my Gmail account. Gmail is very good about clearing spam (knock on wood) and so far I’ve never had an issue with them, like I have with other email providers. At first it was tough for me to get used to the whole forum-like thread on Gmail, but now, I really like it. If you have an email account that passes too much spam through, consider changing providers.
I don’t respond to everyone: I used to respond to everyone, even if it wasen’t that useful to me personally, like a PR person with a tip I couldn’t use. I’d email to say thanks anyhow, but no thanks. Now I’ve pulled back a bit on email etiquette. I respond if it’s important, if you’re a friend, and often if it’s someone with a question about blogging, but that’s it.
New ideas I have to save time on email:
Don’t answer every email right away: There are some people who say that you should only check your email if you’re ready to respond. I used to do that. Problem was I’d check my email 3+ times a day. Now I don’t answer all my emails right away. I’ve been saving them up. I still do check my email maybe 3 times a day, in case there’s some sort of client emergency, but I’ve been trying to answer the bulk of them at night.
Check your email once a day only: This is too hard for me to do, but I’ve been considering bucking up and trying it. The issue is that on weekdays I’d have 100s by nighttime if I didn’t do a sweep a couple of times a day. What I do currently is fly in, and scan for unimportant emails , which I delete, and toss everything else into labeled folders.
Delete all blog comments right away: It’s not always up to me whether I get comments emailed or not; sometimes my clients or networks have them sent to me. However, what I’ve found is that if I read and respond to comments when I see them in my inbox, it wastes a lot of time. My new system that I’m working on is simply reading my comment panels once a day at all my blogs. I’m not too good at this yet. I like to read comments as they arrive, but it does waste more time than dealing with them all at once.
Deal with special groups of emails once a week only: I get lots of emails from people asking me to do product reviews or giving me tips on topics. I’m saving all these in a PR folder that I sort, read, and answer once weekly. I’m also part of a stumble email group, so I’ve been labeling and saving these as well.
I started working on my email problems last week and so far it’s been better. It takes time to develop new habits though, and most days I really want to go comment at my blogs right away, or respond to stuff that’s not a dire emergency. If I follow through, I think the above ideas are really going to help me.
Obviously I’m not the best person to be giving email advice (it is one of my issues) so I decided to search out a few links you can read that address email nightmares:
12 Rules for Getting a Grip on Massive ProBlogger Email - great tips, some I’ll be trying out.
Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload - an older article, but had some nice tips surrounding how to send better emails, and how to let people know that you’re not an email slave.
10 Tips for Managing Email Effectively - excellent pointers about all areas of email management.
20+ Firefox Plugins For Managing Email - extra plugins tend to make my world more difficult, not easier, but these may work well for you.
What’s your best tip for managing email overload?
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10 Responses to “Spend Less Time On Email & More Time Blogging”
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Awesome tips Jenn. As for deleting blog comments right away, I think your tip was great advice to just go straight to the panel and view everything. I’m using Disqus which has it’s own panel on the Disqus site, so I may start using it more.
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Great tips but I do have something extra to add!
I run a business that is entirely online so, for me, I have to check my emails constantly through the day, because of new clients or existing clients contacting me, or sales that have been made online and need some action or responses required.
However, I do use the Rules Filter in Outlook and anything to do with blog comments and posts, forum discussions, newsletters, etc that don’t need immediate attention, get filtered into the relevant folders in my inbox. That way I can see there is new mail in those folders but I only attend to them at a time convenient to me. Hopefully anything left over in my inbox either needs a new filter set up, or needs an immediate response or some kind of action fairly soon.
Another feature of Gmail that I like, besides its good spam filter, is the Label option. I have labels for certain people that email me frequently, whether they be personal or blog-related. You can colour-code them too, which is great for me to view at a glance, or filter.
Timely topic, just yesterday I went in to change the setting for how often my email polls. It was set to every THREE minutes. Was I nuts? I changed it to every 20 minutes and already I feel less rushed, pressured and distracted.
@Corvida I cheated twice today. It might be better to have all comments not sent to me. It’s tempting to see what people say
@Kathie good points. Sometimes, if I have more than one sponsor at a time to deal, or a new job, or other attention needed issues going on, I end up having to check my email more often. Filters are great, I wish there was a way to divert Gmail instantly to a folder.. hmmm, now I wonder if there is. I don’t like Outlook though (which would be the downside for me).
@Samantha I do this too. I label all my PR and sponsors this way, since I write on about six different blog topics, it helps. Green goes in one label, houses in another, and so on.
@Cynthia I bet you feel less stressed already!
Good tips. Another that I use is to create gmail accounts in variations on my “real” account as well as domain email accounts. So for my blog at Best Hubris I might have besthubris@gmail.com, best@gmail.com, bh@besthubris.com and so on. Then I can release those address under different scenarios. So one for forums, one for job boards, and so on. Basically if it is a registration (spam might be coming) I use gmail. If it’s me sending out my stuff into the world, then I use my domain accounts. Either way, if one of them gets to be a little too filled with time wasting emails, I set an out of office on it and a rule to delete everything. I also send an email to the non-time wasting senders asking them to use a new address. After a few weeks, the old email address drops off everyone’s radar and I can start using it again. This helps keep my “real” inbox cleaner so that I can start there and if I don’t have time to keep going, I know that I got the most important emails taken care of.
@Brian your system sounds too complicated for me. Besides my reg account I actually have one spam account that I use, say if I buy something online. Because I know I’ll get spam. I also have a bill email account, that I use only for bills notification and payment receipts. Lastly I have a newsletter account for gov agencies and building websites who don’t have feed availability yet.
That’s way enough for me. I don’t think I’d like to have to cancel and re-open accounts often. Although, if you can keep track I can see where this system might work. It does seem like it would be a lot of trouble to let a hundred plus people know each time you change though.
Still, the best plan is the one that works best for you. Thanks for sharing your system.
Kudos to you for working toward checking only a few times daily! That means you’ve taken control!
Believe it or not, most people who email don’t expect an immediate response. How do they know if you’re ooo or in a meeting? Actually, most people expect a response to email in about 24 hours! Even customers! If its urgent, they’ll call or scream…
Spreading out when you go in to SORT (not necessarily WORK) your email, gives you control over your day.
My best tip is to empty that inbox each time you go in to it, and that really only works when you go in infrequently. Open your email to sort it, then move it to files to work later…
Works for me!
@Marsha
“Believe it or not, most people who email don’t expect an immediate response.”
You know, I know that, but email feels more urgent than say phone calls to me. I’m not sure why, but you make an excellent point. Maybe I should hang a sign like that above my desk. “Email is not as urgent as you think!”
Thanks for the good tips, and for stopping by.