Staying on top of your inbox can be overwhelming, especially if you’re an accountant. Trying to manage all of your client work and keep track of what your team is working on (which often happens through email) doesn’t make it any easier.
With so many accountants struggling with this, here are three things you can do to help control your inbox (so that you can get back to the work you love):
How often do you send yourself an email to remind yourself to do something? You probably already know that your inbox isn’t the best place for task reminders. For one, it can easily get lost in between your other emails, and two, it doesn’t keep you accountable (think: due dates, who else on your team depends on it, and so on). That’s why the first step to controlling your inbox is to stop using it as a form of task management. There are plenty of other tools out there that are better suited to help keep you on track.
If you organize your inbox so that you can manage and track your emails in a way that makes sense for you, your clients, and your business, you’ll be able to easily see high priority messages and avoid letting pertinent information fall through the cracks. Creating folders and having the appropriate emails go to those directly is a step in the right direction. If you’re already doing that and you’re still struggling to stay afloat, you should consider some more robust and customizable options that can do this for you—automatically.
Are you currently using email as a way to keep everyone on your team in the loop when it comes to managing client work? Even if you only do this occasionally, it results in a lot of CCs, and FYIs. Those email chains make your inbox messy, but more importantly, they make your communications messy. It’s too easy for bits of information to fall through the cracks. Those kinds of mishaps hurt your firm the most because they’re the ones that could’ve been prevented with a better system in place.
