As a business owner, we all have days when you feel like falling apart. Managing too many things simultaneously from attending your kid’s school programs, to meeting a client deadline and attending to the e-mails in between can make anybody .. grumpy/frustrated/stressed. As you succeed in business and when everything is important, it becomes very difficult to cope. Period. The pace of the modern day workflow are breakneck speed and people are not willing to wait.

E-mail is a major hurdle in time management for business owners. It is estimated that about 65% of professionals cannot go more than a few hours without checking email. Normally, a person spends around 2-4 hours on a typical day answering messages most of which can be kept pending for 6-8 hours without any issue. Generally the problem with e-mail is that we are unable to arrive at a decision whether to it as a written form of communication which can be leisurely responded or as a telephone communication which has to be responded instantly. For many, we feel that we are obligated to respond to them immediately.

Try to use the following tips intended for better e-mail management:

• Have different e-mail accounts for different purposes so that you can prioritize them. Set up separate accounts for vendors, clients, employees etc and have an entirely different account for friends and family.
• Set up an automatic reply that says the time you usually check the e-mail and advise them to call if there is something urgent.
• Try to delegate less important e-mails to your virtual assistant.
• Set up Priority for your e-mails according to urgency so that you can respond to them if required.
• If the e-mail requires detailed response, set apart sometime in the evening for them. It is better to draft a better response than sending something on the go.

About Out of the Office Virtual Assistance:

At Out of the Office, we are committed to providing earth-friendly administration and offer ideas and ways to increase your productivity, decrease your workload, and work more efficiently. We nurture a successful business relationship, while continuing to grow as your business partner. We are focused on streamlining your administration, social media planning and execution, and offering creative solutions for your business success.

Image credit: geralt | CC0 Public Domain