Stop Searching For Emails
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Smooth Sailing Online Support TV. I’m your host and captain Lyndsay Phillips, steering you through the choppy waters of fast-paced business growth.
I’ve been busy working this morning, and something came up for one of my team members for which I gave them a quick tip and thought you know what, I’m going to do a quick video and share it with everyone else as well.
I had a team member ask me for an email they couldn’t find – an email that I sent them – and it had a couple of details about a task that we’re working on for a client. Now, I’ve had this come up as well for other team members that I’m collaborating with for various clients and even clients that have emailed me. They’re busy working on that given project and I’m sure you’ve had this happen as well.
My biggest tip is, do not use your inbox as storage. If you do delete it and it goes into your trash, you don’t want to spend your time searching for past emails with information that you need for future tasks or even for future reference or a meeting that’s coming up. The biggest tip I can give you, when you do get an email with relevant information that you know you’re going to need at a future date, whether it’s for a project that you’re working on this week or a future project going on a couple of months from now, any details that are in that email, whether it’s the body of the email or an attachment, you want to save that and move it to your project management system.
Whether you’re using Basecamp, Asana, or Teamwork. Teamwork is one that I use and love, so I actually copy and paste the body of a given email sometimes, and paste it into the comments section of the task that I know I’m going to be working on. If there’s an attachment, yes I will save it to my hard drive, because I am super organized when it comes to folders. But quite often I’ll take that and attach it to the task as well. You can usually add a file in there as well.
When I go to work on that task or my team needs to work on that task, all that applicable information is all in that one central spot so all the details, all the communication back and forth, and you know what it’s like, there’s tons of email back and forth to kind of solidify a project or help plan it out. You’ve got it in one central spot, you don’t have to search for emails in your sent or your trash, and you’re also keeping your inbox really neat and tidy.
That is my productivity tip for this week. Thanks again for joining me and if you want this tip along with more with my Sailing to Success podcast show, or my blogs and articles, you can go to LyndsayPhillips.com. Of course, if you do need help in your business to grow, be more productive, get more done, check out my online support services and contact marketing services at SSOnlineSupport.com.
Have a profitable and productive week, and make the winds always be at your back.
