Blogs

Email reminder – best practice

Email reminder, which is best practice, to add it to the task list or flag it?  Neither one is better.  It is about:

• personal preference;
  

  Email reminders

• how much time you spend out of the office looking at your inbox on a mobile device;
• whether or not you are managing another person’s inbox;
• level of added data you need about the reminder.

Here are the pros and cons of each email reminder process. This is an extract out the new book being co-authored with Meslissa Esquibel for Executive Secretary Magazine

1. Task List

Pros

• Excellent if you like working from task lists.
• You can add more information such as Categorize and notes – see diagram below.
• You can assign the task to someone else.
• They turn red after their due date.
• If you are sharing your inbox or looking after another person’s task list, you can see the complete list.
• For Outlook users, you can add extra information, including forwarding the task to another person.: see below

Cons

• You need to complete the Task dialogue box.
• Takes about 15 to 30 seconds longer than adding a Flag.
• On an iOs mobile device the task list does not automatically show up.  You must add either the ‘Reminder’ or ‘To Do’ app.  The latter is the more sophisticated.

2. Flags

Pros

• Quick and easy.  If you add Reminder date, they will be added to your Task List (even if the reminder is ‘No due Date’).
• You can see all flagged items in the ‘For Follow Up’ (smart) Search Folder.

Cons

• On a mobile device you must be add the Flagged folder.
• For iOs users you need to add this as follows:
• Open the Mail app./Tap Edit in the upper-right corner./Select Flagged./Tap Done.
• If you also use the Task List this can become very cluttered.

Thus,as you can see which procees you use for an email reminder it is very much a matter of prsonal preference.  If you want more time saving tips like this why not book one of our Smart Email Management webinars or a one-to-one coaching session?

Tags: email management, Email reminder, flags, improve performance, task list, wellbeing

Comments are closed.