Everytime we check our mail and see a message, it breaks our focus.  Even if you don’t respond to the message, there is a break in your concentration.  All of these concentration breaks add  up to be a lot of wasted time.

Here are my top five tips to controlling your inbox and the urge to check it continuously.

Top Five Tips

1. Resolve to only check your inbox twice a day at set times.  Send an email or use an autoresponder to announce your email policy.  Think of a little reward for yourself for sticking to this practice for two weeks straight.  (Rewards increase motivation!)

2.  Unsubscribe to any and all emails that aren’t serving you.  If the sender and topics aren’t worth your time, they aren’t worth the space in your account.  Unsubscribe without guilt.

3. Email etiquitte suggests that emails are not for long letter writing, they are for short, brief messages.  Commit to not falling into the trap of sending emails which are longer than two paragraphs.

4. Use templates to respond to emails which you send on a regular basis.  When I respond to new clients, the email is the same.  I just go to my draft folder, copy, paste to a new email, then fill in the blanks and send.

5. Use email tools to help keep you organized.  www.ClearContext.com is a plug in for Outlook that helps you organize your mail.  It prioritizes based on your past history, and allows you to efficiently schedule a time to read a low priority email at a later date.

Distractions are the downfall of productivity.  As an entrepreneur, the key to success is to eliminate as many distractions as possible.  Challenge yourself to take charge of your inbox and think of all the projects you will be able to complete with the extra time.