Managing your inbox is a problem for many people. Mine started when I first came online in 2006 selling physical products on eBay. I started subscribing to everyone who had information about working online, particularly selling products on eBay.

I did not have a system in place to deal with emails and it wasn’t long before my in-box had 300 emails waiting to be opened.

Actually, I remember once having over 1,000 unopened emails, How did that happen?

With email being one of the most common ways to communicate it’s important to have a system in place especially if you want to get involved with social media.

Joining social networking sites means more emails so here’s a few suggestions that have worked for me and might help you with managing your inbox:

• Unsubscribed from all the lists that no longer add value or provide you with the information you need now. Staying on someone’s list just because you might need that information at a later time is a waste of your time. If it’s information you’re not using now, get rid of it.

• Take some time in the morning to go through your emails, but the trick is to do something about an email once you have opened it. A great tip I’ve learned recently is ” read it once, do something about it than move on.”

• If you know you won’t have time to deal with an email than don’t open it. Let it go until you do have time.

• Make folders to put you read emails in that you need to save, don’t let them sit in your inbox, move than to their appropriate place.

• If you open an email and it requires you to do something but you can’t right now for whatever reason, move this email to your to-do list. That way it will get done when you have all the information you need to respond to the email. You can also prioritize it when it’s on your to-do list, you can’t do that when it’s sitting in your inbox.

These are a few things I have learned over the years of feeling overwhelmed every time I looked at my inbox.

There’s also other get tips (like the one I mentioned above) on managing your inbox in the book called The Nurse’s Social Media Advantage by Robert Fraser, BSN, RN. How Making connections and sharing ideas can enhance your nursing practice.

Tina