• Cut Down on Noise - Turn off the alert noise. This can help you escape the addictive cycle of reflexively seeing whether something interesting came in and then using your time to create more messages by responding or forwarding.
  
• Eliminate Spontaneous Checking - limit the number of times per day you check your e-mail. Whether it's once an hour or once/twice a day -- whatever works for you -- check e-mails at intervals as opposed to constantly reacting.
• Inform in the Message Title - Use clear informative subject lines. Using a subject such as “Hey” requires that someone open the e-mail to even know what the purpose is before prioritizing the message. Instead use captions that can be understood even without opening the message. For example: ” 4p.m. meeting canceled"
• Maintain a Clean Inbox - Remove all e-mails from your inbox at a given time and file them into appropriate folders or delete them.
• Keep Your Folders Simple - Do not create too many folders. doing so increases your overhead and potential for losing a message in the "wrong" folder. A 2000 study found that the more folders users had, the less efficient message storage and retrieval became.
• Foster Human Contact over Electronic Messaging - Meet with your coworkers to discuss ways in which the e-mail traffic in your department can be reduced. Consider, for example, avoiding sending nonessential messages such as acknowledgements. Put your department on an e-mail diet. Don’t send quick thank you notes that simply acknowledge receipt of the message, picking up the phone, etc. These etiquette actions are best handled in a direct conversation.
• Reduce e-mail Distractions - Before sending, consider and respect your coworkers' time and attention. Remember the notes you send to them can be a distraction from their work.

From Tracey Tarrant , here are three valuable tips to help you get your e-mail back under control.

Folders – folders allow us to organize our email for easy finding. My Inbox is broken down into the following categories:

• Doing – In this category are all my client folders.
• Growing – this is where I store marketing material and continuing education. The most important folder I have here is for all my newsletters. This way I can go in when I have a few minutes and catch up on reading.
• Needs Action – I have this broken down into 7 days of the week. E-mails needing action are dragged into the appropriate day for me to work on.
  

Create Rules – the day I learned this trick was the day I saved so much time sorting e-mails! Creating rules directs Outlook to sort your email for you. Almost everything I receive is set up on a rule to go into a folder. There are two ways to create a rule:

• Right click on the email. Scroll down and click Create Rule. There are several ways you can choose to create the rule. Select the one that works best for your email. Click ok. I always check the next box to run the rule on all the email in my inbox. It will automatically sort into the designated folder.
• The second way to create a rule is to click Tools on the Taskbar. Select Rules and Alerts. This brings up the manage rules box. Here you can create rules, delete rules, move to new folders etc.

Timers – Contrary to popular belief, you do NOT have to have your email running continuously. I have mine set to run every 20 minutes because my business is highly e-mail based. If yours is not so much focused on business, you can set your timer to run with longer intervals, or turn it off completely and manually run your e-mail during your set e-mail time. Many people find it best to run e-mail in the morning, around noon and then in the evening. If you are not constantly distracted by e-mail you are much more productive! To change your timer:

• Click Tools and then Options. Click the second tab that says Mail Setup
• Under Mail Setup, click the box that says Send/Receive
• Go to Settings for group “All Accounts”
• The second box is the one to change your timer. Either set it for the time interval you want, or uncheck it to manually run your e-mail yourself.

Copyright 2008 Your Virtual Round To-it All Rights Reserved. Tracey Tarrant is the Chief Get It Done Officer for Your Virtual Round To-it. Providing virtual administrative assistance to small business owners and solo-preneurs, Tracey takes the "paperweight" off your shoulders increasing productivity, profits and growth. For More information please contact tracey@yourvirtualroundtoit.com or visit www.yourvirtualroundtoit.com

Do you have additional tips to share on how you or your company has reduced the volume of useless e-mail? We'd like to hear from you and add your tips to the list. Suggestions

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