Blog

I hope that all of you enjoyed the summer holidays, the summer break that I recommended you all to take.

Gaining energy from some good quality time with the family or even with yourself, it is time to be back into business. You know that feeling, you are full of energy on your first day after the summer break, you feel relaxed and you have in mind “ I can take over the world”, Ha!

Then you open your mailbox, and the sounds of ping ping ping ping all incoming emails not read pop up... After the final ping you see a high number of emails waiting for your answer, your positive feedback, your vision on certain topics. How do you handle this on your first day back at work?

 

Well, let’s give you some tips & tricks on how to handle your high number of emails after your vacation.

Tip 1: Weed out the advertising and other unnecessary stuff first.

The first thing you do is weed out the junk mail. Advertising, of course, is the first to go. Subcription to newsletters can get in your way. Oooh, wait don’t delete the PMI Belgium Newsletter! You would miss some important messages related to the upcoming congress PM Fair on Friday 11^th October, you will miss the opportunity to subscribe to an online course project management at Odisee or have a overview of the upcoming events at PMI Belgium Chapter. So, delete all other newsletter, so that PMI Belgium Newsletter becomes available for you at the first sight!

Tip 2: Use filters for high-priority senders.

There are likely a few people on your contact list whose emails you don’t want to miss. I have a folder of Priority Senders where I store important messages that need more immediate action. Did you get the personal invite to subscribe to PM Fair congress? This message should be in this folder. It required immediate action if you did not register already for the PM Fair.

You can move messages to the Priority Sender folder for safekeeping while you sort the rest of your inbox.

Tip 3: Mack a catch-up folder.

Now that you have sorted your high priority email into a separate folder, you can deal with the rest. The catch-up folder that you can name in whatever you like from “ Email to process” to “Abandon all hope who enter here” is a blessing. What a bliss to start  your day with an empty box. This might feel like cheating but trust me it is a great way to alleviate the strain of hundreds of emails to process and no time to process them. It will be out of sight and instead of feeling like your inbox is a bottomless pit from which you never emerge, you’ll be able to venture into your virtual storage room whenever you have time to spare.

 

With smiling greetings,
🌞 Anja Vandenbergh🧚‍♀️
President of PMI Belgium