Do you ever feel overwhelmed when you look at your email inbox? Does it seem like every time you answer a set of emails your inbox doesn’t get shorter? Well, you are not alone. In fact, the average person receives more than 100 emails per day…yikes!

Odds are this amount will not decrease as time moves forward. What you can do to alleviate some of the stress is start a daily routine.

Here are 5 steps to start this process.

  1. Set a time limit – determine how much time you want to spend in your inbox on a given day, and don’t exceed it
  2. Know your etiquette – the average time it takes to respond to an email is greater than the time it took to create it
  3. Prioritize – answer all urgent matters first before answering less time sensitive emails
  4. Don’t sign up for junk – When signing up for a new web service, opt out of updates and do not sign up for irrelevant newsletters
  5. Don’t open mail twice – as you open each email, you give yourself only five options: delete/archive, delegate, respond (if you can do it in under two minutes), defer, or do

In addition to the above tips you should read the Email Charter, online source for email etiquette. The site provides 10 Rules to Reverse the Email Spiral that will help you get a handle of on your inbox.

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