When I ask clients to assess where they spend their time and where it is most wasted, I keep getting the same response – the email Inbox. Does that ring true for you? Do you keep looking at that Inbox as the notification sound plays? Is your Inbox just crowded and you never seem to get ahead? Well here’s my No.1 tip on how to find more productive time in the day and manage your email better.

Everyone has a peak performance time of the day, that time of the day where your brain is firing on all cylinders and you are your most productive. For most people that’s between 9am and 11am. This is absolutely the time of the day NEVER to open your unimportant emails. 

So what’s my No.1 tip on how to manage your email? Learn how to filter your emails as they arrive into relevant folders for your attention later in the day.

In Outlook, simply right click an email you receive regularly, one that isn’t that important to read immediately, and follow the “create rule” dialogue. Set up a range of folders that represent the main categories of emails you receive such as subscriptions, newsletters etc.These emails will then be automatically forwarded to those folders.

Then, importantly, schedule a regular time in your diary to review these less crucial emails rather than have them build up on you. And that will leave you with the just important emails in your Inbox.