Has your inbox ever been so full of unread emails that you felt like giving up? Are you getting bogged down by the never-ending email chains and meeting requests? Do you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of emails and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better? I know how it feels. It was just too much for me to handle, but then I found an easy solution: automation! Now my inbox is organized into folders, my calendar is clear of meetings, and I am able to focus on what matters most. Read on for more information about this simple life hack.
What is Email Automation?
Automating emails is the process of using an existing app or script, or writing your own code to send an email on a repetitive basis. For instance, if you would like to remind yourself every week about last month’s online orders, you could create a recurring reminder in Google Calendar and use Zapier to send you an email automatically before each reminder.
You can also use email automation software like IFTTT, Flow by Zapier, or SaneBox to do this for you automatically. You might even want to configure that last sentence into a trigger in your favorite monitoring tool.
Why is Email Automation important?
Emails are distracting and time-consuming if you let them be. The more time you spend checking, reading, and responding to emails, the less time you will have to focus on creating content or fulfilling orders.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could spend just half an hour each morning checking your email, and then process everything in your inbox at once?
Email Automation can help you do this. By using email rules, automated email responses, and other tricks, you will be able to process your entire inbox in a few short hours each morning, or even less time if you’re good at it!
How Can I Get Started With Email Automation?
Step 1 – Using mail
How did automating my email help me?
I received about 120-145 emails a day before I automated my email. Since then, I am lucky if I get 20-30 emails in a day.
Here are the steps I took to automate my email:
1. Sign up for SaneBox’s free trial at sanebox.com. This tool scans your inbox and filters out really important emails that you MUST take action on ASAP, less important emails that you can read later, and the stuff that just doesn’t matter.
2. Set up Google Calendar to remind yourself about tasks by adding a new reminder event with the email subject as the title of the event. That way you will be reminded without manually checking your inbox.
3. Make sure all of your important emails lead to a to-do item in your task manager. That way when you are ready to work on that task, all of the relevant information is readily available.
4. Use Zapier or IFTTT to send any email you would like to automate through SaneBox so they are filtered out of your inbox completely. This can be done by creating a zap or recipe.
5. Make sure all emails that you send are saved to Evernote, OmniFocus, or your preferred task management software using Zapier.
6. Unsubscribe from any newsletters that aren’t vital for your business. Remember, if you don’t have time to read it now, then it’s probably not a good use of your time.
7. Unfollow all people who post memes on social media.
8. Don’t get involved in long email threads. If you need to reply, keep it short and sweet so that only the necessary people get notified about new developments.
9. If somebody sends you a really long email with step-by-step instructions and you don’t have time to read it right now, just forward it to yourself and save it in Evernote.
10. If somebody sends you an email that isn’t relevant anymore (for instance a standard template they use every day), add them to your SaneLater list in SaneBox so that all future emails from this sender are moved to another folder.
11. Put your email on vacation autopilot so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to turn it on when you leave town.
12. Make sure the only people who can send you emails are those who need to get a hold of you ASAP (like clients or teammates).
13. Unsubscribe from any marketing newsletters or social media updates that you don’t care about.
14. Schedule your email checking time (I check mine at 10:00 and 15:00 each day).
15. When in doubt, ask yourself “Do I really need to be doing this right now?”
Having a clean email inbox helps with everything else in life, so why not give it a try?
Email automation can be used to filter out unnecessary emails and focus on the ones that need immediate attention. Sanebox can help you with this process by filtering out certain emails based on relevancy. If most of your time is spent getting down to important details, then you’ll find these steps helpful.
Thank you for reading our blog!
Leave a Reply