My Inbox, that is!

Is this you, too?

You have Microsoft Outlook. You can see your email come in and immediately have to check it out. So you stop what you’re doing to go see who it’s from and what it’s about. While you’re rummaging in your Inbox, all your other tasks go by the wayside. Especially if some email message has a task that must be addressed as soon as you read it.

It’s driving you nuts.

Me, too!

So what are we going to do about it?

This calls for some drastic action.

Did you know MS Outlook 2003 has some really great features to manage your email? In fact, one of the results in “MS Office Outlook Help” with the search feature of “Rules and Alerts” - “About Managing Messages with Rules” - has the following solutions for setting “Rules and Alerts”:

“Rules (rule: One or more automatic actions taken on e-mail messages and meeting requests that meet certain conditions, along with any exceptions to those conditions. Rules are also referred to as filters.) help you manage your e-mail messages by performing actions on messages that match a specific set of conditions. After you create a rule, Microsoft Outlook applies the rule when a message arrives in your Inbox or when you send a message. For example, you can automatically:

* Forward to your manager all messages sent by Judy Lew when they arrive in your Inbox.
* Assign the category Sales to all messages you send that have the word “sales” in the Subject box.
* Flag each meeting request or meeting update you receive from your manager.

Rules fall into two general categories: notification and organization. Notification rules alert you in some way when you receive a particular message. For example, you can create a rule that automatically sends an e-mail message to your mobile telephone when you receive a message from a family member. Organization rules perform one or more actions on a message. For example, you can create a rule that moves certain messages to a folder or flags them for follow-up on a particular day.

You can also run one or more of your rules manually. Running rules manually allows you to selectively apply them to messages already in your Inbox or in another folder.

You can add exceptions to your rules for special circumstances, such as when a message is flagged for follow-up action or is marked with high importance. A rule is not applied to a message if any one of the exceptions you specify is met.”

That’s it!

The other part of the solution is that you must be willing to set boundaries… you may need to make them known publicly. Perhaps you will do this via your Web site or in a handout you provide for your prospects and clients.

But then, of course, you must stick with your decision and the schedule you’ve chosen.

For instance, you might elect to check your email in the morning prior to beginning your regular work day, at noon and again at the end of the day before you leave the office. Of course, you’d also want to set time aside to respond to them. Then, too, you might run into situations that require you to respond outside the regular time set-aside for your email management.

Seems pretty simple!

I don’t know, though. I find I may have a bit of difficulty. Since by not checking my email regularly, I still often tend to think I’m going to miss something!

Hmmm.

I wonder if there’s an “email-anon” for “email-holics!”