While e-mail can enhance your productivity, it can also be a huge distraction trap if you are not careful. Each incoming e-mail calls for your attention. How do you keep yourself from getting sucked into the e-mail trap? You must develop guidelines for yourself on when and to what you will respond. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

• Set specific times when you will review incoming e-mail. Some people set 8, 12, and 4 as times to read e-mail.

• During those times, create guidelines on what you will respond to immediately and what later. For example, you might respond to client emails immediately and company e-mails at the end of the day.

• To prevent procrastination or a huge pile of emails, set up sub-rules such as “If it takes less than 60 seconds to respond, I will respond immediately. Otherwise, end of day.”

• Set up sub-directories to sort different categories of e-mail and for easier reading later. You might create sub-directories for company product info, compliance info, specific projects, etc.

• Set up a different e-mail address for work related e-mail and non-work. Review non-work e-mail in non-work hours.

• Turn off incoming alerts on e-mail. You won't forget if you don't get an audio cue.

• When finished responding, delete it or store it so it doesn't clutter your in-box.

For additional time management tips, see our articles section and Get More Done is Less Time.

See also
You may want to reference the earlier issues of the Referral Mastery Tip by clicking here. In an earlier Referral Mastery Tip and Tele-seminar, we reviewed the importance of understanding your clients' objectives and securing client agreement on the structure and the strategy of the portfolio. We also covered how to use client reviews to address client disappointment and re-affirm the portfolio objectives, structure, and strategy. (Or risk management objectives, strategies, and policies)