I, probably like most of you, spend too much time responding to unimportant emails. This time could be spent much more efficiently, but I have an almost guilty feeling when I take longer than a half-hour to respond to an email. Enter the Autoresponder. Yes, that thing you use when you are on vacation. There are no rules saying that it can only be used when you are out of the office!
In our technologically fueled world, an automatic response to an email can be a good way to acknowledge the receipt of a message, and depending how you craft the auto response, you can give people an idea of when you will get back to them. This decreases the chance of any hurt feelings for an email that is responded to several hours after it was received.
Using an autoresponder while in the office is just another way to boost productivity. It will allow you to prioritize email responses, and hopefully gain the ability to simply stop responding to emails that are a waste of time. Craft a generic response letting people know you will get back to them when time permits, and set it to autorespond to all emails. I guarantee you will save more time than you realize!
