It’s difficult to stay on top of email volume for anyone. The best method for dealing with too many emails may depend on your personality type as time management specialist Susan Tollefson writes about here: 4 Email Management Styles.
You may or may not fall into one of those categories. You may also be someone who prefers other communication methods. After all, email management is something that you need time and a routine to deal with. Perhaps you’re someone who prefers to text or message people.
The problem is that lots of people still use email. If you’re ignoring your inbox, you may be missing important emails.
You can make the email routine less onerous by getting organized, as I write about here: 4 Ways to Becoming More Responsive. One of these organizational methods is automation through the use of email filters.
Create filters for the most important emails from your VIP list.
You could have those emails automatically go into a specific folder that you check religiously. Or you can have them flagged or starred.
If you’d rather be getting those important emails on your phone, you can set up a filter that will automatically text them to you. Your network provider provides an email address for you to do that.
If you’re on Verizon, for example, you can set up a filter to forward those emails to <your 10-digit phone number>@vtext.com. (For example, if the phone number is 555-123-4567, forward to 5551234567@vtext.com.)
For AT&T, forward to <your 10-digit phone number>@txt.att.net.
Depending on your provider and the length of the email, the message may be truncated or sent as multiple text messages. You will have to go into your email to see the entire message.
Here’s how to set up those filters:
Outlook: How to Set up Auto Forwarding in Outlook
Mac Mail: Forward Messages
Gmail: How to Forward Mails in Gmail
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“Drowning in Email – A Lifeline for Communications Overload”
