Holiday Emails

It’s coming round to that time of year again, so I thought it was worth putting this up to help you deal with all those post holiday emails.

If you rely on email as part of your business, you probably dread coming back from holiday to hundreds of emails. The thought of spending the first week dealing with them all, so here are a few ideas to help you deal with the backlog.

First off – move ALL the unread emails into a Holiday Email Folder. That way you can clear your Inbox and quickly scan and deal with all the new emails as they come in.

Once you've planned out the important things you need to get done on your first day back, set aside an hour to go through your Holiday Email folder. Do your priority task first then deal with your email.

First scan - DON'T READ OR RESPOND TO ANY EMAILS ON THIS SCAN. Just go through quickly and eliminate the spam and any email you know you don't need to read. Use the sort function to sort your email by sender or subject, which makes it easier to delete the junk. This should take only a few minutes.

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

Set aside time to respond to your 'Action' emails – start doing this now, as you should still have plenty of time left. Go through and respond to the emails, which only need a quick two-minute response. Leave emails requiring a longer response or more thought until later in the day when you’re next planned to deal with them.

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

If you’ve still got time in the hour do the third scan - if your filters haven't already sorted out Reading emails, now is the time to place all of these in the appropriate folder(s). Remember you don’t have time to read everything and the world won’t end just because you haven’t read this week’s/month’s newsletter. Now, might also be the time to unsubscribe to those you never get round to reading anyway.

Fourth scan - deal with what's left. Less urgent action emails can now be dealt with. Anything still left? If it's not action or reading - it's probably not urgent so can be deleted.

Once you've safely dealt with the backlog that came in while you were away, then you can apply the same process to the new emails that have come in.

Extend The Holiday Feeling

If you’ve just come back from holiday – don’t allow yourself to get sucked back into the routine of work as soon as you get back. Try to keep the relaxed feeling you hopefully came back with, into the next few weeks.

Plan what you need to get done in the week – those things you absolutely MUST do but also plan to have some time for yourself. If you are in the habit of working in the evening – take at least one evening off this week. Actually giving yourself less time to do things or putting a limit on how much time you have available helps to focus the mind and you might be surprised to find you actually get things done quicker. Like when you’re going away on holiday and you go into overdrive to get things finished on time.

Something that we often take for granted, particularly if you’re working from home is to remember why you do what you do and your reason for working for yourself or working from home in the first place. Don’t beat yourself up if you feel like having a couple of hours off from work. Sometimes it’s good to take a break during the day, (you don’t get the chance when you work in the corporate world), so make the most of it when you can. Come back refreshed and you’ll be more productive.

There's no problem with spending your time on work but keep it in perspective. As long as you know what you need to get done, it's up to you when you do it. If you need/want to take time out during the day, get up a little earlier or work a little later. I often find evening working is a great time, particularly if I'm focused. I create articles, do my online networking, catch-up on emails and can be hugely productive. During the day I may have chosen to spend my time meeting up with a friend, gone for a run, taken a walk or even got the shopping done. Much better when the shops are less crowded.

Spread your working hours across the week in a way that works for you. Make sure you fit in time to relax too, both for yourself and for family and friends.

What Are You Putting Off?

One of the key challenges that people raise more often than most with me is procrastination. If it’s a problem for you too, here are a few strategies to help you deal with it.

First, understand the reason behind your procrastination. Why are you putting off a particular task? What is it that you’re resisting? Take a few minutes to think about it - overwhelm, fear, lack of knowledge or skills, poor planning. Looking at the reason for the procrastination can help identify ways in which to stop it from happening or at least to start working on it.

Spending just a few minutes each day planning what needs to be done will make a real difference to how productive you are for the rest of the day. What’s the most important thing you need to do in order to achieve your objective and your longer-term goals.

Making sure the outcome of each tasks is aligned with your goals, whether it’s business or personal, otherwise it's wasting further time and effort. Plan time into your schedule in advance – especially if you’re in the habit of leaving things until the last minute.

Prioritise what's important - be honest. Is it really important or just a 'nice, fun thing to do', when there’s something more important that needs doing? Take your biggest, most important task and make sure you do it first, before anything else distracts you. Nothing else is more important and once you’ve done it, you can move on to the next thing.

If you have a large overwhelming task, break it down into smaller tasks. What’s the very first thing that needs to be done? Do that. Then you’re ready for the next step. This might be as simple as writing down a few notes on paper, making a phone call or sending an email. Just get the ball rolling. Once you get started it’s surprising how much easier it can be to keep going.

Get more tips in my article on procrastination.