18 / 12 / 2013
NHS email archiving tipsAre you constantly trawling through hundreds of emails when a colleague has put you on the spot asking whether you can find ‘that’ email that was sent either 3 or 4 months ago? If that sounds familiar it might be time to clean up your inbox. Yes, you have been putting it off since you can remember but if you commit to it in stages, the end result of a clean NHS inbox can certainly be achievable.
With each email you receive from now on try this:
- Read the email
- Decide what to do with the email (reply, delete etc)
- Do it
- If you haven’t deleted it, archive it for easy referral at a later date
Have you ever thought about allocating certain times of the day to check your emails rather than doing it whenever one comes? If you plan to read and action upon your emails 3 times a day at certain times, it gives you more time to carry on with your daily workload. If you start accessing your emails at 9am, 12m, and 4pm, it can acquaint others with your schedule and gives you a routine in which you can focus on email management whilst the other time is dedicated to general work.
The email itself
It could be:- Not of interest – delete, unsubscribe
- Actionable – do now or plan for later
- One for the archive – no immediate action needs to be taken apart from archiving
If it’s actionable, complete the task now or put it in your calendar to do at a later date and then archive the email so it’s easily accessible.
If there is no immediate action to be taken on the email but it can be considered important, archive it.
Key components for a clean inbox
- The correct mind-set
- Knowing what’s important and what’s junk
- Setting the time aside for inbox management
- Email archiving software which can organise your emails (tagging/indexing to project etc)