I went on an interview for a Sales Administrator position once and I remember the first and most important question the VP of Sales asked me, "How are you going to manage my emails?" At the time of the interview, I didn't realize how important that question was, but I found out later that my answer was the sole reason why they hired me. Organizing or managing of emails is one of the biggest frustrations an executive has in their day. They can handle the meetings, they can put together a budget, and they can razzle and dazzle in the boardroom; what they can't do is keep their inbox from piling up.

So, let's take a quick look at emails, shall we? How many emails in your inbox? How many emails are in your executives inbox? Scary, isn't it? Now how many of those emails are unread?

I recently had an experience with one of my clients regarding her emails or lack of attention to her emails. We were having a session with both Jill and her assistant when the CEO came in to discuss an email that he had sent the day before. Needless to say, Jill's response was not what the CEO was looking for. She didn't read the email and she hadn't "seen" the email. In a matter of seconds, I watched expressions on 3 individual's faces go from confusion, panic, fear, anger, frustration, devastation, and dismay. Thus, the Organizing and Managing of Emails became top priority on the CEO's list of things for me to fix.

On the list of items we needed to make this system a success, were 5 different colors of Post It Flags, a highlighter, and to make sure Jill's admin had full access to her emails. Once we had the supplies in hand, we went through our Plan of Attack!

We had determined early on that Jill was a very visual person who needed the tangibility of paper in order to make her comfortable in accomplishing her workload. Since we knew that, I sent Beth, Jill's assistant, to print off every email that Jill had in her inbox that was unread, including attachments. At that time, Jill had 356 unread emails so it was going to take an awfully long time and a ton of paper. While, Beth was doing that, Jill and I set up a couple of rules in her inbox. One rule was for the CEO and his assistant. Any email coming from either of them was going to go into a specific folder in her email labeled OOP (Office of the President). Jill would now always be able to see when an email had come from his office and she wouldn't have to go looking for it.

We then archived her emails at a 45 day setting. This all by itself reduced her total inbox size down to 548. Since Beth was printing all of the emails that hadn't been read, I had Jill start to file or delete the emails that had been taken care of. With Jill busy with her email sorting, I went in to help out Beth create an email management system for Jill.

There were 5 action steps for Jill's email; To Do - To Respond - Meeting - Travel - FYI. Each of those five actions had its own color: Orange - To Do; Green - To Respond; Blue - Meeting; Red - Travel; Yellow - FYI. As the emails were coming out of the printer, Beth would determine what action needed to be taken on that particular email. If it was something Jill needed to physically do, it received an orange flag at the top. Beth then highlighted the action required and any other pertinent information so Jill could easily see what was required of her. She then repeated the action for every email.

After we had them all finished, we sorted them by category so all of her To Do emails were on top, then To Respond and so forth.

Next, the three of us sat down and went through the entire pile. Beth would do a quick recap of the email; if it was already taken care of she put it in the recycling bin. If an action still needed to be done, Jill would dictate to Beth what was needed and then she would set it aside. A lot of times, Jill would dictate an email for Beth to write and send out for her which saved Jill a ton of time at her email inbox. Once we finished the massive pile, we still had 65% of the papers we needed to do something with.

Beth pulled out all of the emails she could handle for Jill and the rest Beth took and entered into Jill's Task list inside Outlook and then placed the pile back on Jill's desk. Remember, Jill is a visual person so having them solely in her Task List would have been begging for the Land of the Forgotten. Instead, Jill could visually see by the flags on the emails what she needed to do. All of the items that were marked for her To Do she could sort through and pull out the ones that were a priority and start on those. By the end of the day, Jill had her email inbox cleaned out and a new system in place.

But the work didn't stop there! Every morning, Beth would come into work 15 minutes earlier and go through Jill's email. She would then repeat the printing, the flagging, highlighting and entering into Jill's Task List. As soon as Jill came into work, Beth had Jill's undivided attention for 15 minutes so they could go through the previous nights' email.

Not only did this accomplish a managed email system, but Jill and Beth went on to be a more productive team. Jill was promoted to VP and received high praise from her clients for being attentive to emails and solving issues as soon as they arose. Beth not only became a tremendous asset to Jill, but to the company as well. She currently trains all incoming administrative staff on Organizing and Managing Emails.

Extra Tip: Outlook 2003 allows you to color code flags on emails. Instead of printing and flagging physically, you can flag within your Outlook and sort by flag color!

For over 20 years, Suzanne has been helping corporations and small businesses organize their time so they can spend more time and energy doing the things that are most important to them. With a philosophy of "life is too short", she thrives on making the most of her time and trying to encourage those around her to do the same.

As an organizational consultant, public speaker, and former radio talk show host; Suzanne has been training administrative assistants and their executives on how to become a more efficient and effective team.