I have a love/hate relationship with my email—mostly hate. I love getting emails from friends, especially LeaderTribe subscribers, and receiving needed information for my businesses. But 71% of email is spam, and the world now has about 4 billion email accounts. Average corporate email users sends/receives emails every five minutes (over 100 per day).

How can you get your email read above the noise? How can you save time every day? How can you follow-up automatically if you haven’t received an important reply?

Check out these short and sweet tips to do better in this area.

Tip #1: The best time to send your email is between 6-7 a.m. This makes sense for several reasons. Email “open rates” are higher for early emails because we check our email in the mornings. If your email is near the top, people will read it. The second best time to send email? It’s between noon and 1 p.m. People check email again after returning from lunch! There are other psychological examples of why we appreciate early morning emails. For whom do you have more respect: a boss who sends you a work related email at 10:30 p.m. or one who sends you something at 6:30 a.m.? You can write your email whenever you want and schedule it to be sent in the early morning.

. . . we check our email in the mornings. If your email is near the top, people will read it. CLICK TO TWEET

Tip #2: You can go through the same amount of email in 20% less time if you check it less frequently! In my popular article, Multitasking is a Lie (link to blog Multitasking is a lie), I reviewed Stanford University research proving that moving back and forth between tasks is inefficient and stress producing. In follow-up research, people participated in a two-week project.

In week 1, people checked email whenever they wanted. In week 2, they could only check it three times per day. Week 2 was the big winner!

People spent less time doing the same work, and their stress level plummeted.

Tip #3: You can resend your email if you don’t receive a reply. Using a free service like Boomerang, you can remind yourself when to deal with specific email, send email at a later time that you choose, and even resend an email to which you received no reply. I’m fairly tech savvy and it took me about 15 minutes to download the free software and learn how to use it. (If you know of a better service, comment below to help the Tribe!)

Email is here to stay, so let’s master a few skills to stay ahead of the game. CLICK TO TWEET

Bottom Line: Leaders keep learning and learn to do things more efficiently. Email is here to stay, so let’s master a few skills to stay ahead of the game.

What email tips have you found most effective? Please comment below.