Find more time in your day, Tip #5: use groups to send email to multiple people at the same time

Email tools are constantly evolving and changing how you can do things. One thing that doesn’t seem to change is that we tend to have groups of people we send similar things to.

It may be your family. Or a group of co-workers. Or all those vendors who are working on a project for you.

Although it may seem simple to type their names over and over again or the tool you’re using happily pops up a list of people whose names match a few letters you’ve typed, it is a waste of time if you send to the same exact group (or even a group that stays the same most of the time and your occasionally need to add someone else).

When you take a few minutes to create a group (which is a stored list of email addresses), you can save time. And may even save yourself an irate email ‘cuz you forgot to include someone on that ever-so-important note!

Using something called a Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) is a great idea if you don’t want everyone receiving the email to see the email addresses of the other folks. It’s a respectful way to honor privacy and get your work done more quickly at the same time! A twofer, eh?

1. Pay attention to any email where you manually add multiple names multiple times for a new email or a reply to an email
2. Once you reach the “Magic 3” (you’ve created the same list 3 times), STOP. Right then and there.
3. Come up with a meaningful name for the group
4. Create a group
5. Add people to the list
6. Bingo, bango, next time you send an email to multiple people, type the list name and Mary’s Your Aunt (or Bob’s Your Uncle if you prefer)…a few keystrokes and everyone is getting the email and you’re off to the next task

1. Pick ONE (and only ONE) time saving tip to work on for the next week
2. Share your favorite ways to find more time in your day in the comments below
3. Help others get more time in their day by sharing this post (Tweet This!)