Virginia Lawyers Weekly

Do you receive more e-mails per day than you have time to deal with? Does constantly checking your inbox interrupt your work flow? Are important messages getting buried under months’ worth of junk mail buildup?

If so, you may be suffering from e-mail overload.

Dealing with too much incoming e-mail leads to distraction from work, unproductive use of time and undue frustration.

An influx of spam, junk and otherwise unnecessary e-mails can create disorganization and potentially cause you to overlook important messages, as they are lost in the shuffle.

If you’re overwhelmed by your inbox, there are steps you can take to help decrease the workload.

Clean house

As with any type of clutter, the best way to control your e-mail going forward is to start with a clean slate. Schedule some time you can devote to purging old and unneeded messages from your inbox (depending on the amount, this could take several hours).

As you go through, figure out the reason you allow the mail to accumulate in the first place. Were you too busy for day-to-day inbox maintenance? Maybe you were reluctant to toss e-mails that could potentially help you down the road? Perhaps some messages had a personal or sentimental value?

Determine if each item still holds the same relevance, and use your best judgment before deciding whether to click the red X.

Also, as you’re deleting old messages, identify items you consider to be junk. To prevent future buildup of junk mail, unsubscribe from any newsletters or product updates that you don’t regularly read. If you encounter unwarranted solicitations, immediately block the sender to prevent future spam messages.

One thing to keep in mind: Depending on your settings, items marked for deletion may queue up in a trash folder, where they can sit indefinitely until permanently removed. If that’s the case, it’ll take one extra step to flush these purged messages for good.

Organize

Once you’ve whittled the contents of your inbox down to a manageable level, it’s time to begin organizing the mail you do intend to keep.

Microsoft Outlook and most other mail programs let you create folders, and even subfolders, for better organization of saved mail. How you arrange the folders is up to you. It can be by client, by case name, by date – whichever system works best to your benefit.

Don’t make your filing system more complicated than it needs to be, though. If you create too many folders or drill down too far into subfolders, tracking down saved items could be more difficult.

Once you have an organization system established, you’ll want to be diligent in keeping up its maintenance.

If you don’t want to spend time screening each message that comes in, you can set up auto-filing rules in programs such as Outlook. When rules are established, the e-mail program automatically routes messages from specific senders, to specific mailing groups and containing certain content into assigned folders.

For example, you could direct all mail from “jdoe@mail.com” to be filed in the “Doe v. Smith” case folder. Or send mail containing the word “consultation” in the subject field into a folder labeled “potential clients.”

To assign rules in Outlook, right click on an e-mail item, select the “Create Rule” option and follow the instructions in the pop-up box. You can also go to Tools – Rules & Alerts to set up a rule from scratch.

When these specified items come in, they’ll skip your inbox and go directly to their designated folders. Folders containing new mail will appear in bold font.

Develop a system

Keeping your inbox organized and well-managed will bring you peace of mind and ultimately save precious billable hours.
The key is establishing and sticking to a system for attacking e-mail as it comes in.

Since we live in a society that strives to be constantly connected, you may be reluctant to turn your back on your inbox, even for a few hours. But at the same time, you can’t spend your entire day taking on your e-mail.

The best practice is to schedule certain times into your day to focus on e-mail. When that time comes, you’ll need to decide what to do with each message as soon as you read it.

Any e-mail that doesn’t require a response can immediately be filed into an established folder, forwarded to an appropriate party or deleted to prevent unnecessary buildup.

If an e-mail just needs a quick response, do so upon reading. Once you write back, decide whether to file the original message or delete it.

Only keep unanswered mail that requires some form of action in your inbox.

Use Outlook’s flagging system to mark important items as needing future attention. To do this, left click on the flag icon – or right click to choose between six different colors for better categorization.

However, if responding to an e-mail involves extra time or work, it’s best to let the sender know right away you got the message and will be back in touch, and then keep them updated on your progress.

Web Sites - E-mail management programs

If you try these inbox management strategies on your own and still find yourself drowning in e-mail, you might consider trying out a software program to help you with the task:

Outlook4lawyers.com. The lawyer’s edition of QuickFile 4Outlook provides an easy mechanism for categorizing and printing important e-mails on a daily basis. The program also lets you create a Word or HTML document containing all e-mails associated with a particular client or case. One account is $97.50, but the price decreases with the purchase of additional licenses. The site also offers a 30-day free trial download.

Claritude.com. On this site, you can download Outlook-compatible software that helps you manage and file incoming and outgoing mail more efficiently. Features include a streamlined file navigator, an advanced filing system and an option to pre-file outgoing messages. A single-user, professional license costs $39.95.

Xobni.com. Xobni is another Outlook plug-in that helps you organize your flooded inbox. This program provides quick search tools, finds social media profiles for your contacts, and offers e-mail analytics, along with other useful Web 2.0 tools. The download is free.

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