This is a partial screen-shot of my inbox. Eek! I'm going to be talking about email organization today, and I wish wish wish I could show you a clean inbox. Unfortunately, although I do aspire to this ideal, I rarely reach it. BUT! Hopefully you won't mind me sharing with you a few tips I've found helpful, despite my short-comings.
Today I'm continuing my series for photographers in which I share tips for organizing and systematizing your workflow. And when I say "workflow," I don't mean it in the narrow sense of post-processing. I mean the entire customer experience and set-up of our businesses. If you're just joining us, click here to find a complete list of the posts in The Workflow Series and get caught up!
If you're in business and your inbox is a mess, chances are your business is a mess too. In Part 1 of this series, we talked about the importance of systematizing. It's SO important to have a system for everything workflow-related in your business, and nowhere more-so than when it comes to your inbox. SO much of our communication these days is through email, and being able to filter and organize your emails in a way that facilitates easy access to past conversations and content contained within them, is crucial to business efficiency. Clearly, I have a ways to go myself when it comes to inbox organization, but I wanted to share a few tips that have worked for me:
1 - If you're working from multiple computers using a desktop application like Mac Mail for your emails, set up your email accounts as IMAP accounts. This will allow your inboxes to sync across multiple computers.
2 - Create a folder structure in which to store and organize past emails for reference later. We create a folder for each wedding client (a step on our wedding workflow checklist) and store all emails relating to that wedding in that one folder. This helps immensely when we need to look back at a past conversation between us and the client or us and the wedding planner. We also utilize a sub-folder structure where client folders are organized by year and then photographer (in relation to our associate program). Other folders that are helpful are: potential clients (emails from leads who have not yet booked), photographers, coordinators/vendors, and "order info" (a place to store receipts and shipping info for anything purchased online). But the sky is the limit! Create a folder for anything and everything -- we have a folder for each MJ2Day workshop, for publications, and for anything accounting/tax related.
3 - Store this email folder structure somewhere online. We use iCloud. So anytime an email is dropped into one of our email folders, it is stored in a cloud online and is safe, even if our computers were to crash.
4 - Hire an IT guy to help you set this all up if your head is spinning right now -- haha! Technology stuff is not my strength, so I occasionally bring in an IT expert and pay him hourly to trouble-shoot issues or set-up something complex. WELL WORTH IT.
5 - Flag emails that contain information that you know you will want to access later. That way you can get the email out of your inbox but still easily search for it within one of your organizational folders at a later time.
6 - If you're working within a team, you can easily transfer emails that need the attention of another team member into their email inbox just by dragging and dropping. Sara and I do this often, and it gives me great joy when I can move emails from my inbox into hers -- haha!
7 - Make it your goal to keep your inbox clean at the end of each day. I know -- Do what I say, not what I do, right?? But I DO aspire to this goal even though I don't always reach it. Emails can so quickly build up and get out of hand, so if you let your inbox grow over the days and weeks, it will quickly become a debilitating obstacle to your productivity. Taking care of emails is really just a series of decisions. So in order to get through them and stay on top of things, you have to buckle down, put on your big-boy pants, and make some decisions. If some of your emails require you to complete a task, and the task takes less than 10 minutes -- DO IT NOW. If the task will take longer, and you can't get to it today, make sure it is written on your to-do list so it doesn't fall through the cracks.
I hope you've found this post helpful! If so, I would appreciate if you'd pass it on through Facebook or Twitter using the buttons below. To find out about more resources I offer photographers, click here!
Click here to read part 9 of the series -- Client & Vendor Database.
Today I'm continuing my series for photographers in which I share tips for organizing and systematizing your workflow. And when I say "workflow," I don't mean it in the narrow sense of post-processing. I mean the entire customer experience and set-up of our businesses. If you're just joining us, click here to find a complete list of the posts in The Workflow Series and get caught up!
If you're in business and your inbox is a mess, chances are your business is a mess too. In Part 1 of this series, we talked about the importance of systematizing. It's SO important to have a system for everything workflow-related in your business, and nowhere more-so than when it comes to your inbox. SO much of our communication these days is through email, and being able to filter and organize your emails in a way that facilitates easy access to past conversations and content contained within them, is crucial to business efficiency. Clearly, I have a ways to go myself when it comes to inbox organization, but I wanted to share a few tips that have worked for me:
1 - If you're working from multiple computers using a desktop application like Mac Mail for your emails, set up your email accounts as IMAP accounts. This will allow your inboxes to sync across multiple computers.
2 - Create a folder structure in which to store and organize past emails for reference later. We create a folder for each wedding client (a step on our wedding workflow checklist) and store all emails relating to that wedding in that one folder. This helps immensely when we need to look back at a past conversation between us and the client or us and the wedding planner. We also utilize a sub-folder structure where client folders are organized by year and then photographer (in relation to our associate program). Other folders that are helpful are: potential clients (emails from leads who have not yet booked), photographers, coordinators/vendors, and "order info" (a place to store receipts and shipping info for anything purchased online). But the sky is the limit! Create a folder for anything and everything -- we have a folder for each MJ2Day workshop, for publications, and for anything accounting/tax related.
3 - Store this email folder structure somewhere online. We use iCloud. So anytime an email is dropped into one of our email folders, it is stored in a cloud online and is safe, even if our computers were to crash.
4 - Hire an IT guy to help you set this all up if your head is spinning right now -- haha! Technology stuff is not my strength, so I occasionally bring in an IT expert and pay him hourly to trouble-shoot issues or set-up something complex. WELL WORTH IT.
5 - Flag emails that contain information that you know you will want to access later. That way you can get the email out of your inbox but still easily search for it within one of your organizational folders at a later time.
6 - If you're working within a team, you can easily transfer emails that need the attention of another team member into their email inbox just by dragging and dropping. Sara and I do this often, and it gives me great joy when I can move emails from my inbox into hers -- haha!
7 - Make it your goal to keep your inbox clean at the end of each day. I know -- Do what I say, not what I do, right?? But I DO aspire to this goal even though I don't always reach it. Emails can so quickly build up and get out of hand, so if you let your inbox grow over the days and weeks, it will quickly become a debilitating obstacle to your productivity. Taking care of emails is really just a series of decisions. So in order to get through them and stay on top of things, you have to buckle down, put on your big-boy pants, and make some decisions. If some of your emails require you to complete a task, and the task takes less than 10 minutes -- DO IT NOW. If the task will take longer, and you can't get to it today, make sure it is written on your to-do list so it doesn't fall through the cracks.
I hope you've found this post helpful! If so, I would appreciate if you'd pass it on through Facebook or Twitter using the buttons below. To find out about more resources I offer photographers, click here!
Click here to read part 9 of the series -- Client & Vendor Database.
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