August 2010 - Issue 74 - www.clareevans.co.uk

Hello ,

A lot has happened in the last month, despite it being holiday season. There are joint ventures underway to create new time management products (I'll keep you posted as these become available).

I'm involved with a number of companies to provide time management/ work life balance strategies to their employees. It really is one of the things that can make a huge difference to your life and work.

Money of course is the other thing and if you're using your time effectively, you'll be making more money for your business and your company.

New - Essential Time Management For Business Workshop. Starting later this month, I'll be giving four lucky businesses the chance to massively increase your effectiveness and make more money for your business. Special Bonus Offer if you're the first to take action.

I'm taking part in a teleseminar series, designed for new and existing online businesses. You'll get amazing access to all the insider secrets from the experts about running a successful online business. Sign up for your FREE place at: http://bit.ly/ceaob

A request - I know many of you have already bought and read (or listened to) Time Management For Dummies. I'd really like to hear from those who have read (or listened to) it - please place a review on Amazon for me. Thank you.

Many of you are either on holiday, going on holiday or just back from holiday. I thought it would be worth posting up my tips in this month's newsletter on managing your holiday backlog.

Keep in touch with what I'm up to and get extra news and tips from my blog or Follow me on Twitter.

Enjoy the rest of this month's newsletter.

Clare

P.S. Feel free to pass this newsletter on to friends and colleagues.

Unless you're one of the 50%+ who check their email while on holiday, or you've had someone else dealing with it while you've been away - you've no doubt come back to an Inbox full of emails.

Don't despair. There are a few quick and easy things you can do to rapidly clear those hundreds or thousands of emails and get back to business.

The process for dealing with a holiday backlog is the same as handling emails on a daily basis, it's just that the volume is much larger.

Set aside the first half day to catch up after a holiday break. Not just emails but phone messages and to give you time to take stock and plan out the week and month ahead.

Once you've dealt with anything urgent or important, set aside an hour to tackle your Inbox.

We're not expecting to clear it in that time but you'll have made a start and be in much better shape by the end.

You might be tempted to leap straight in and start responding straight away.  Spend time sorting and organising now will save you time in the long run.

DON'T respond to any new emails until you've had a chance to clear what's already in your Inbox.

First scan - DON'T READ OR RESPOND TO ANY EMAILS ON THIS SCAN. Go through quickly and eliminate the spam and any emails you know you don't need to read.

Sort your email by date, sender or subject, which makes it easier to identify and delete the junk.

Second scan - pick out all the priority emails you need to respond to or read and place them in a separate 'Action' folder or Flag them.

You may have highlighted newsletters that you no longer read - flag them so you can unsubscribe (not this one obviously!).

DON'T respond or read them now - at this stage you're just prioritising. DON'T get distracted!

Tip: You don't have time to read everything so delete anything that doesn't require your attention or have information you absolutely MUST have. Don't save it 'just in case'.

Third scan - if your filters haven't already sorted your reading email, now is the time to place these in the appropriate folder(s).

If you still have some time left within this first hour (which you should have) - start responding to the priority emails until the time is up.

If you've used up your hour, set aside time later in the day to respond to your 'priority' emails.

Depending on the volume of emails, you should be able to easily complete the first two scans and maybe the third. If not leave it until the next time you're scheduled to work on your email.

Take a quick look at new emails - in case there is anything important that needs attention, I mean a 'few minutes'. Don't get distracted!

Fourth scan - deal with what's left. These should be emails for action or reading - anything else can be deleted.

Once you've cleared the backlog you can now deal with the action items in the normal way.

Before you go - switch email groups to special notices or admin only.  Do this for online discussion/networking groups like Facebook and LinkedIn. Reduce the volume so you have less to deal with.

Email is one of the greatest distractions and one of the biggest time wasters. Find out how you can manage your email more effectively.

Give me a call or email me for afree Strategy Session - www.clareevans.co.uk.

Until next month.