All righty, welcome back and welcome to a new section of this course. In this section we'll be talking about the nightmare I call emails. Now, I could start by throwing statistics out at you, like 269 billion emails are sent each day, or the average office worker receives 121 emails each day. But at the end of the day, I think we can all agree that emails make a significant impact on our lives. They are just a part of our day to day lives, and we can't really get rid of them. However, we can manage them efficiently to open up more free time and boost productivity in our lives.

So that's what we'll be discussing in this lecture. So let's get going. Okay, so before we can talk about how we can make emailing in managing our emails more efficient, we need to define our specific problem. Everyone has a different problem in regards to emails. So take a second To this lecture to really apply this to you, some people have issues formulating well written emails, some people read over an email a million times before they end up sending it, and then later realizing there was a typo, or they forgot to add the attachment. And my personal favorite is when people's inboxes are just a complete mess with zero method to the madness.

Now, no matter the problem you're having, we'll go over some of the best practices to not only increase productivity, but you also increase overall quality when it comes emailing. So first and foremost, no matter what platform you're using Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. You have to have a method to the madness organization is key here. I cannot say it enough, find your own personal way to get organized, you won't regret it. Some people use email labels to sort their inbox, which I kind of like some people use folders and sorting methods with reminders in them and some users very intricate services to keep their inbox sorted perfectly. Regardless, the way you want to do it is up to you Everyone is different.

However, I use Outlook and have set up rules. So specific emails from specific people or services go to specific inboxes. So here's a screenshot of what my outlook looks like minus the blurriness to protect some sensitive information. As you can see, on the left hand side, I have my inbox split up into different folders to keep everything organized. Plus this system is completely automatic through the use of Outlook rules. So for example, when I get an email from skill survey, which is a referral service, it will go straight to my skill survey folder.

This keeps everything organized, which reduces emails getting lost, and it reduces time spent trying to find specific emails. Something else you may notice in my outlook is the fact that my calendar is filled out No matter how little a reminder is, I recommend just putting it in your calendar. This keeps me organized and on top of my game, you can also use this in Gmail or really any service out there. Everything has a calendar these days, just figure out what works for you. Lastly, utilize these tools heavily to stay organized. categorizing by color, unread versus red and follow up flags are super, super powerful tools to stay organized.

So please take full advantage of them. Again, it's totally up to you on how you should organize your emails. There is no 100% right way to do it, test a few techniques out and see what works for you. I will say though, that 100% you need some sort of organization when it comes to your emails, your productivity and efficiency will skyrocket if you have an effective organizational system, but okay, we went over organization a tiny bit. Now we It's time to go over arguably one of the best strategies I use to make the most of my time. Yeah, we're talking about quick parts.

Or if you use Gmail, they have a similar feature called canned responses. If you don't know what quick parts is or what canned responses are, it's essentially a pre written email or parts to a pre written email that can end up saving you so much time. Here is essentially what a simple quick parts would look like. It's a broad email that can be quickly altered and sent out with very minimal time spent on it. If you aren't already doing this, you are wasting tons of time. So take a few hours out of your day to create generic email templates that you'd use frequently.

A few hours now to build these out will save you five to 10 minutes on each email from here on out, aka saving you tons of time and allowing you to be way more efficient. Also, don't feel bad that you aren't writing a personalized email because the recipient has no idea. You yourself get hundreds of generic pre written emails every single day. If you're good at drafting up your quick parts, your recipient will have no idea. And trust me when I say this, because when my roommates and I were applying to jobs, our senior year of college, we had a wall in the house where we would print out every declined email we got. By the time we moved out, there was about 30 emails slapped up on the wall, and they all looked almost exactly the same.

So please maximize the use of your time by utilizing quick parts or pre written email templates. by organizing your email inbox and by utilizing quick parts or canned responses, you will be 10 times more efficient, I promise. There's a few other strategies for managing your emails and the time spent on them. But we'll gloss over those a little bit later. Later in the course, nonetheless, there should have been some major takeaways during this lecture. So take this time to figure out what works best specifically for you.

And then continue on with me in the next lecture as we continue to look at strategies for minimizing productivity killers. I'll see you then.