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<p><em>If you are a freelancer or an entrepreneur, there are great chances that emails are part of your daily life. Whether it is a client follow-up or a quote request, your inbox can fill up quickly and become unmanageable. To help you with this, we have found six tips to help you manage your business emails more easily and have more time to do what matters.</em></p> <p></p> <h3>How do you manage your business emails more effectively?</h3> <p>What can you do to avoid spending several hours weekly to read and answer all requests? We know that an entrepreneur&#39;s time is precious; consequently, let us present our tips to be more efficient.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>Book time to read and answer emails</strong></p> <p>Whether starting as a freelancer or not, managing business emails can quickly become problematic if you receive many messages daily. These emails are often essential to the health of your business; it is one of the most popular ways to communicate with clients, partners, or suppliers.</p> <p>To be more effective, consider booking some specific time during the day for your emails. Book blocks of hours without any appointments where you can take the time to answer and do follow-ups. Many entrepreneurs start their days by checking their emails and verifying them again in the afternoon.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>Do not stop what you are doing when you are receiving an email</strong></p> <p>A mistake often made by several people is to stop everything when they receive a new email. It may indeed be difficult to ignore notifications. Therefore, we stop what we are doing to see what it is about, even if it is not urgent most of the time. We then return to what we were working on.</p> <p>Unfortunately, this pause caused us to lose time and focus. It can happen many times throughout the day. This second tip is related to the first one: do not stop what you are doing when you receive an email. Read it later, when you are finished or during a booked email period.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>Organize your business emails in dedicated files</strong></p> <p>Another way to manage your business emails better is to organize them in dedicated files. An inbox with hundreds of unread emails can seem intimidating or disorganized. Consequently, you will save time by organizing your business emails once they are read and answered. It will also be easier to retrieve them if needed.</p> <p>It is up to you to see which system works best for you. Some people prefer to create files with their clients&#39; or current projects&#39; names, while others prefer to separate the files with steps. For example, all the ongoing projects could be saved in a file, while those to do or finished could be in another folder.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>Unsubscribe to newsletters that are not relevant anymore</strong></p> <p>Do you receive dozens of emails every day? Does the majority end in your spam or trash folder? If this is the case, reducing the quantity of emails at the source could be relevant. If you have subscribed to many newsletters you do not open anymore, take a few seconds to unsubscribe from them. With time, you will decrease the number of emails you receive in your inbox daily. Do not worry; it is always possible to subscribe to them again if needed.</p> <p>Similarly, ask yourself if all the emails you send are necessary. Is it possible to regroup information simultaneously or send it to so many people? Remember that every existing email requests energy.</p> <p>Find out our tips to be more <a href="https://www.momenteo.com/blog/6-ways-to-be-more-ecofriendly-while-working" target="_blank">eco-friendly when working</a>.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>Use templates or automated answers</strong></p> <p>Once more, if you receive many emails daily, you could use templates or automated answers to save time. Regarding automated answers, it could be a reply to confirm the email has been received and will be treated in a certain number of open hours or days.</p> <p>Regarding templates, they are especially useful when you always get the same requests and questions. Take the time to write some answers and save them in a file. Therefore, you will save some precious time by copying and pasting the answer instead of writing the complete message again each time.</p> <p></p> <p><strong>If you have a lot of requests, consider delegating tasks</strong></p> <p>Finally, if you are overwhelmed and do not have the time to manage your business emails, why not work with a <a href="https://www.momenteo.com/blog/interview-with-a-virtual-assistant" target="_blank">virtual assistant</a>? These professionals provide many services, from accounting to content creation and email management. How would you feel if you started your day knowing that all your business emails were answered and organized in their dedicated folders?</p> <p>Freelancers and entrepreneurs often think they must do everything themselves; however, as we have seen in various articles, <a href="https://www.momenteo.com/blog/should-i-delegate-my-tasks-if-so-which-ones-and-how-" target="_blank">delegating some tasks</a> to keep your time and energy for what matters is often relevant.</p> <p></p> <p>In conclusion, how can you manage your business emails more efficiently? Start by booking some dedicated blocks in your schedule to read and answer your emails. Remember that you will be less efficient if you stop working each time to receive a notification. Then, organize everything in folders, unsubscribe from useless newsletters, and use templates for the most frequently asked questions. And if you are still overwhelmed, consider working with a partner to remove some weight from your shoulders.</p> <p>Do you need other tips to remain more productive? Find out our pieces of advice on how to <a href="https://www.momenteo.com/blog/how-to-manage-your-work-week-more-efficiently" target="_blank">manage your work week</a> more effectively.</p>