How to organize work with mail so as not to spend much time

Do not start the day with checking mail

No one likes to keep others waiting. In the morning, having discovered a mountain of incoming messages, a queue of calls and urgent matters, the first desire will be to deal with all this before starting work.

Spend the most productive hours on more important tasks. Willpower is needed to turn off the world around you for at least an hour. Otherwise, you sacrifice your potential for the sake of illusory professionalism.
Spend strictly limited time checking your mail

For example, no more than five minutes per hour and 5 times a day. This approach provides more flexibility and freedom. But you need to remember the discipline so that every five-minute check is not delayed for half an hour.
Do not check your mail if you don’t have the time, energy and attention to figure out what might come to you

The problem with the routine checking of new letters is that often you do not have time and the ability to respond normally to them, so you just waste your time. Including therefore it is not necessary to check mail first thing in the morning - usually when you wake up, you do not have energy and attention to cope with them, and as a result you only expose yourself to unnecessary stress.
Make a decision on the letter immediately

When you open a new letter, there are several options:

    read a little and understand what to read next is not worth it;
    read and respond immediately;
    read and respond later;
    read later.

Make a choice right away, but better of the first two options. If you read the letter and know what needs to be done, do it right away. Otherwise, you doom yourself to reread. If you do all this correctly, your mailbox turns into a list of the most difficult questions, those that require reflection (mark them “for execution” or with an asterisk), plus a few non-urgent letters for reading later.
Delete unimportant letters

Letters that find the answer, mailings that are not interesting, feel free to delete. Unsubscribe from reminders from social networks, calendars that are duplicated by mail if they do not help you, but simply spam the mailbox.
Sort letters

Mail services allow you to create folders. This is the best tool to deal with overloaded mail. Create folders for work, personal correspondence, study, other things. These can be the “Projects”, “Other”, “Reply later” folders. The main thing is that you are comfortable. But to initially sort mail by folders, you need to spend time.

If you can get your mail on its own after relentlessly completing the points above, then quit putting letters in folders! You don't need this life hack anymore.
Forward letters to colleagues if they can respond more competently

Redirect the letter with a little explanation and delete it from the inbox, if possible.
Subject matter over content

The subject of the letter should be taken as the heading of the text: it should contain the main idea of ​​the message and at the same time it is enough to intrigue the person. "Information", "Note" are bad options. The title should express simplicity and concreteness: “Vacation dates”, “Employees for training”, “How to apply for external training”.
Use Bcc to not substitute message recipients

“Bcc” is the column where you place contacts that should not be visible to other people. Usually it is used for mailings and spam, but this field is also convenient to respect decency and not to show email addresses to outsiders. It is a mistake to believe that people are comfortable when other people see their addresses.

Also, when answering a letter in which several recipients are indicated, do not click “Reply to all” if your answer is needed by a limited number of people.
Short and to the point

Write in the letter all the most important. Without water, extra epithets and unnecessary phrases - on the basis of the presentation for the elevator. Ideally, if your thoughts take no more than five sentences.
Use attachments for secondary information only

People hate reading attachments, so don't make them do it. All primary information necessary for familiarization should be in the body of the letter. Attachments are useful when they include:

    the rationale for your message or request;
    form or table to fill out;
    material that is really interesting, but it is not advisable to include it in the body of the letter (long price list, current article, booklet).

Summarize each letter

It is in it that clearly state what exactly you expect from the recipient: what he needs to do, when it needs to be done, what and how to write in the response letter. If you ask the addressee for several actions or transfer several points of information, the list will help him to understand you faster and more correctly, and also not to forget anything.