Five Ways to Increase Email Productivity!

As time goes by there are always going to be problems with having Email and being productive.  You can have so much stuff going on in one day it’s not even possible to really have time to thoroughly check your email.  So here are some great steps to get some of your emails done with!!

[ad]

  1. Empty your InBox — If you don’t have control over your inbox maybe it is time to make sure it’s empty or at least all read!!  It’s true most of the time I don’t read all my emails, I pick and choose what I want to read.  After that, I decide to make all post marked at read!!  I call it the Panic button!!
  2. Organize your Inbox — Having been signed up for several different email groups.  I’ve got it all organized.  I’ve got a folder setup and used for each group.  I then create a mail filter for each group and have it put it there, unless it’s spam then I have it go into the spam folder!! (also see Email Filtering)
  3. Check your Email on Off peak Hours — Not having a lot of time can sometimes create a need to check your email in the morning or afternoon.  I rarely check it during the day.  So I get all my emailing done either in the morning or late night! As long as you keep in mind not to waste time with the emails.  You can get done with most of your emails in under an hour, unless you get more than 1000 a day, then it’s a different story.
  4. Automate Repetitive Emails —  Having been getting the same emails over and over that aren’t spam.  I’ve got a filter in place to automaticly send out a response to the sender and say I’ve seen the problem and am fixing the problem ASAP.  You too can do that with your emails system.  If you have something that can be automated do it.  It can save you time and money in the long run!!
  5. Unclutter your Email system — Yes that is right to much clutter slows down your chances of getting done with what you need to get done with.  I have done it and it greatly increased my speed in my emails.  Having been email for the past several years I find it essential to keep my email uncluttered!!

[ad]

Although, All of these are lifehacker recommendations. I found the most important ones that I have intrigrated into my email performance and I thought I share them with you. I hope these help you in the long run. If you got a tip you would like to share by all means leave a comment!!

Add Custom Right-Click Options With Nautilus-actions

nautilus-actions_crop.png

Linux only: Automate frequent tasks and avoid unnecessary program hunting with Nautilus-actions, a free extension that adds file-specific options to the right-click menu. Those with a little script know-how can easily hack together their own automators, but some of the freely available actions include resizing and emailing pictures, file conversion and renaming and even a helpful “shredder”—the kind that erases and overwrites a file 10 times to make it unrecoverable.

We’ve previously offered similar extensions, but Nautilus-actions allows you to pick and choose extensions, some with helpful interfaces, that mesh with your other right-click hacks. Nautilus-actions is a free download (available in many standard repositories, including Ubuntu and Red Hat) and requires Gnome and Nautilus. Some plug-ins may require additional scripting packages.

Batch Process Images with Photo Drop

Mac OS X only: Resize, rotate or convert multiple digital images at once with Photo Drop, a small utility that creates programmable image editing droplets. Launch Photo Drop and set the actions you want to perform, like rotating, padding, cropping, resizing, resampling or adding copyright or other meta info and save your droplet. Then, drag and drop any number of images onto the droplet, which processes them and saves them. Great for making high-res digital photos fit for email, watermarking your stuff or resizing a group of images for your blog, Photo Drop is a free download (donations encouraged) for Mac only. Thanks, Susie!