Keeping on Top of Your Inbox

First you must clean the virus from your computer. This job will probably fall to your technical support people. Then ask them what must be done to keep your computer from being re-infected. It may even be that the virus protection software on the company computer is not updating properly, or that the virus is a new threat.

If the virus came from someone you correspond with regularly, not from spam, be sure to let the sender know that the e-mail he or she sent you contained a virus so that person can take appropriate action. Also contact people you e-mailed whose computers could have been infected, so they, too, can take appropriate action.

If you regularly face a stream of incoming messages when you go to your inbox, you need to decide quickly which of the e-mails are really important.

• Check the names of the senders. Were you waiting to hear from them? How quickly do you need to get back to particular individuals?
• Check the subject. Is it an urgent issue or just information? Is it your responsibility, or is it something that you should forward to someone else?
• Check the priority given by the senders. but be aware that some people mark all messages "high priority," whether they are or not.
• Is it obvious spam? Can it, or should it, be deleted without opening it?
• Check the time of the message. How long has it been in your inbox?

Scanning your e-mails will help you identify those that need your immediate attention. You can wait for a more convenient time to read the others.

Because e-mail is an "instant" medium, you may be tempted to reply immediately, but that may not always be necessary nor the right thing to do. If an e-mail requires only a brief, one line answer, then by all means take care of it immediately. For example, if all you need to say is, "Yes, I can make tomorrow's meeting," or "Thanks, that's just what I needed to know," do it. But if you are unable to reply immediately or choose not to, then use a staged approach. Acknowledge that you have received the message. Let the sender know when you will be able to get back to him or her and try to keep to this deadline. This is a useful approach when::

• a message requires a more detailed response;
• you need more information before you can reply in full;
• you need time to consider your response, rather than giving a hurried answer;
• a message has angered, upset, frustrated, or confused you, and you need time to reflect so you can give a thoughtful response.

This staged approach allows you to maintain contact and still accomplish more important tasks. It also gives you a bit of breathing space if you feel under pressure or worried about the issue addressed in the e-mail.

Good time management is just as essential in dealing with e-mail as it is in all other areas of our busy lives. If you are completely overwhelmed by the volume of e-mail that arrives in your inbox daily, dedicate a certain amount of time each day to dealing with it.

If you work out of your home, you may access your e-mail using a "dial-up" connection, which connects to a service provider by an ordinary telephone line. Schedule one or two times each day for checking your inbox. Choose times that fit well with the type of work you do and the volume of e-mail you expect, then stick to your schedule.

If you have a broadband connection that is "always on," your e-mail application may be set to let you know when you receive a new message. Determine, based on your work patterns and scheduling, whether to review new messages immediately or wait until a predetermined time. If you prefer or need to work certain hours—times, for example, when you have to be in e-mail contact with overseas clients in different time zones—you may need to dedicate a portion of the day that coincides with your clients' working hours to dealing with your e-mail.

If you spend full days attending meetings, you may have short breaks between meetings (say 10 or 15 minutes) that you can devote to catching up with your e-mail. That way you are free to leave your office at the end of the day rather than having to deal with the flood of messages.

Where do you put your incoming messages after you have read them? Do you simply let them accumulate in your inbox? If a message is important, you may want to keep it for future reference, but hoarding all your messages in your inbox will just slow you down when you need to find that important piece of information quickly. Some e-mail applications can be set to automatically archive old e-mails. You should also find out if company policy requires that old e-mails be archived, for example, for legal reasons. There may be a central computer for storing or accessing archived e-mails; so check with your technical support or IT department. If you have important information you need to keep on your own computer—contracts with clients or sign-offs from partners done by e-mail—create a filing system, just as you would if these were paper transactions. For example, you could sort messages into folders arranged by:

• client or supplier name
• project title
• date of receipt
• research topic

You can even go one step further and use subfolders: for example, for each project it may be helpful to organize everything by month or year. This will also make it easier to see what files need archiving and when.

To save space in your inbox, you might want to copy important e-mails relating to a specific project or program into other applications. For example, you might want to use a word processing application to create a document called "project communications," in which all relevant e-mails or messages could be held centrally for others to access if you are away for any reason and so that anyone who needs the information can find it quickly.

If you choose not to file your incoming messages as described above, make sure you comb through your inbox regularly. If your inbox contains all the messages you have received during the past week, a simple search for an important message could take a lot of valuable time.

Unless you need to keep messages for legal reasons, it is generally good practice to delete them regularly. Some e-mail applications offer you the option of emptying your deleted items folder every time you exit the application. This is a useful option for poor housekeepers but can be disastrous if you have mistakenly deleted an important message!

Remember to:

• set a time limit for keeping messages in your inbox;
• file or archive any messages that you need to keep;
• be sure you reply to messages that require a response;
• store any valuable information, such as contact names or phone numbers, preferably in your computer's contact list or address book;
• delete unwanted messages, but check the folder before you finally clear it.

Many people express dread at the prospect of returning to work after vacation and seeing the message, "You have 100 new messages"—where do you begin? You will certainly have to prioritize them in the usual way, but a few minutes spent making arrangements before you leave the office will save you a lot of time on your return.

• Leave an "out of office" reply on your system. It will respond automatically to incoming e-mails, telling the sender that you are away and will deal with the message upon your return. The sender may still leave a message, but it may prevent the person from sending further material or messages asking why you have neglected to reply.
• As part of your "out of office" reply, state when you will be back in the office so that people have an idea of when they will receive a response from you. If you expect lots of messages or are at a crucial stage in a project, ask a coworker if he or she is willing to cover for you during your absence. If your coworker agrees, include that person's e-mail and telephone number in your "out of office" reply.

As an alternative, you might ask a coworker to check your inbox regularly for particular types of messages—the types you consider urgent—and either acknowledge them or, if possible, take care of the issue. You will be able to enjoy your vacation a lot more, knowing your inbox will not be full of urgent messages when you return.

E-mail may be one of the most popular, quick, and convenient methods of communication, but practical and effective alternatives do exist:

• instant messaging, which is ideal for communicating short messages, such as "meeting changed to 10 a.m.", or "send me the latest sales figures"
• voicemail, which, like e-mail, allows people to leave messages that you can respond to when you are prepared
• teleconferencing, which allows a number of people to participate in a telephone discussion and make decisions without having to respond to and forward seemingly endless incoming messages.
• informal meetings which promote real collaboration

A good many e-mails originate from outside your company, but consider how many e-mails you send each day to, and receive from, your coworkers every day. Are they all absolutely necessary? If not, you might suggest to whoever is responsible for company-wide e-mail management to come up with some basic policies covering such things as:

• mass copies of an e-mail to recipients who have no need for it (for example, copying everyone on an e-mail about a project when only a few people need to be kept informed);
• personal e-mail;
• limits on the "thread" (or "paper trail") of an e-mail discussion which includes every point made by every recipient.

Spam or unwanted e-mail, like the unsolicited mass mail that you receive at home and deposit unopened in your wastebasket, is a tremendous waste of time and can clog up your e-mail system. It is a real and growing problem for businesses all over the world, and workers can waste a lot of time having to delete spam from their inboxes. Following are some suggestions that might help you rid yourself of spam and free up time for productive activities:

• Use a spam filter supplied by your Internet service provider. Spam filters block incoming e-mails that contain certain terms or other attributes that identify the message as potential spam. But be aware that they do not catch all spam and sometimes wrongly identify e-mails as spam.
• Some software allows you to set rules for your incoming e-mail, for example, blocking all incoming e-mail except messages from addresses contained in your address book or contact list. This can be helpful, but can also cause problems for new legitimate contacts or contacts or organization that have changed their addresses.
• Unsubscribe from any services or newsletters that you do not want to receive. The incoming e-mail should give you a way in which to do this.
• Do not give permission for your e-mail address to be passed on to other parties when you sign up for or purchase something online. Somewhere, in the form you fill in, you will probably be asked permission to share your e-mail address and be given a preference box that you need to check or uncheck. Read any such requests very carefully.
• If everything you have tried fails to stop spam, it may be best to change your e-mail address. Notifying everyone on your contact list of your new e-mail address is a one-time task—much more time-effective than the daily task of deleting spam.

Spam not only clogs up your inbox, but it can contain viruses that may spread throughout your computer system. Immediately delete any suspicious e-mails unopened and empty your "deleted items" folder. Most companies have installed the most up-to-date anti-virus software they can afford on their mail servers, but, if you work from home or are self-employed, you must make sure your machine is virus-free. Scan your computer regularly for viruses; make sure your virus protection software has up-to-date virus definitions; and that you have the latest security patches for your operating system. The links at the end of this checklist will help you find out more about virus protection software.

It is sometimes as hard to ignore a new e-mail message as it is to ignore a ringing telephone. But learn to discipline yourself to stick to your plan for dealing with e-mail. If you feel you must check, simply scan the message and reply later.

Messages left undealt-with in an inbox quickly become unmanageable. Clear the inbox regularly or develop a filing system that allows you to retain useful information and quickly locate what you need.

Spam not only wastes valuable time and clutters up your inbox, it can also contaminate your computer or your company's network with viruses. Make sure you have spam and virus protection, and seek advice from your technical support team or Internet service provider if you have any concerns.

McAfee Antivirus Software: www.mcafee.com

Norton Antivirus Software: www.symantec.com/index.htm