Managing Your Travel Business: Organizing Your Email
by John Hawks

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Chances are that every email you'll read today came from a sender who belongs to a specific group: clients, OSSN (and other OSSN members), family and friends, prospects, etc. Using your email program, set up a separate "mailbox" for each group. You may also decide to set up a separate mailbox for email newsletters that you receive daily, as well as mailboxes for individuals who tend to send you a lot of emails.

(We can't tell you how to set up mailboxes in your system, because every email software program operates differently. Try using the "Help" tab on your email screen, and search for the topic "mailbox" for the instructions.)

Follow the "Four-D" Rules for Handling New Emails

Ever noticed that you sometimes open, read, and close the same email numerous times before doing anything with it? Stop doing that! Try instead to handle each email once before you take action:

Delete it. Be ruthless about getting rid of email that you truly, honestly will never need again (e.g., jokes, unsolicited supplier offers).

Do it. In other words, take the action that's required by the email (e.g., send a quick reply, make a phone call), especially if you can handle it with a few minutes' time. (Then, delete it!)

Delegate it. Should someone else handle this message? If so, send it on immediately.

Defer it. If you can't handle the email with one of the three Ds above, then file it for future action. But, don't forget about it! As you file it in the appropriate mailbox, make a note on your to-do list or set an appointment on your calendar to take care of the action required by the email.

Experts say that, over time, you'll need an hour to handle up to 100 emails a day that come into your system. If you apply the four Ds above, you can delete half of those emails right away, finish or delegate about 30 of them, and defer the rest for future action.

Here's another tip from famed time management expert Julie Morgenstern: Don't check your email in the morning. What she means is that you shouldn't make your email such a priority that it clogs your whole day. Instead of checking email constantly all day long, consider setting aside a specific time in your daily schedule that's just for handling email -- and, then, don't check email again until the same period tomorrow. That won't work for all travel agents, but the key is getting control of your email (instead of letting it run your life!).