Poll: When you access your inbox which emails do you handle first?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
SITE STAFF
Mar 11, 2012

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "When you access your inbox which emails do you handle first?".

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neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 11:34
Spanish to English
+ ...
Current clients Mar 11, 2012

In my "business" email account, current clients obviously come first, and they are usually faster to deal with since I don't have to haggle about rates and formats etc. With prospective clients I have to engage in more time-consuming communication and negotiation.

In my other mail accounts, my first action is to delete unsolicited mails, which I don't normally need to do in my "business" account because the spam is minimal.


 
Ty Kendall
Ty Kendall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:34
Hebrew to English
Most Interesting > Least Interesting Mar 11, 2012

This pecking order usually means:

1. Emails from clients (potential or current).
2. Personal emails (friends, colleagues, etc).
3. Emails from translator lists. (these range from fascinating to snooze-inducing).
4. Spam.

....but they all get dealt with eventually and quickly enough for it not to really matter which order I access them.

If there's an email from one of those "first come first served type clients" and I miss that because I've
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This pecking order usually means:

1. Emails from clients (potential or current).
2. Personal emails (friends, colleagues, etc).
3. Emails from translator lists. (these range from fascinating to snooze-inducing).
4. Spam.

....but they all get dealt with eventually and quickly enough for it not to really matter which order I access them.

If there's an email from one of those "first come first served type clients" and I miss that because I've been too busy with other stuff, then I hardly see that as a great loss.
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Isabelle F. BRUCHER (X)
Isabelle F. BRUCHER (X)  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 11:34
English to French
+ ...
Inbox management Mar 11, 2012

The question is not whether the clients are current or potential, the question is whether the assignment is urgent or not, i.e. if it's about a quote that I have sent for an urgent assignment (potential client) or about an ongoing assignment which is urgent (current client), I read it first.

Of course, if my mother is about to die and I am waiting for news, I read it first... It all depends what kind of personal news it is...

And, in general, I try to have as few e-mail
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The question is not whether the clients are current or potential, the question is whether the assignment is urgent or not, i.e. if it's about a quote that I have sent for an urgent assignment (potential client) or about an ongoing assignment which is urgent (current client), I read it first.

Of course, if my mother is about to die and I am waiting for news, I read it first... It all depends what kind of personal news it is...

And, in general, I try to have as few e-mails in my Inbox as possible, so as not to miss important messages, which might otherwise be drowned in the middle of new Kudoz notifications (for the moment, I often disable the notification process or deviate the notifications towards a special Kudoz folder if I am in the middle of an urgent assignment), Kudoz comments, jobs offered through the quoting process (I delete or file them as soon as treated/read).

By the way, in the job quoting system, too bad there is no filter for translations into Canadian French. Indeed I am Belgian and my Inbox is invaded by those notifications. A difference should be made at least between Canadian French and "European French" (i.e. a Belgian is able to write in French for France, of course, but Canadian French is another matter for a European) - just a suggestion for job notification filtering - who agrees?

My Inbox is for messages I haven't dealt with yet. The rest gets mercilessly filed or deleted. So the choosing process (subject of this poll) is very short indeed...
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Patricia Charnet
Patricia Charnet
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:34
Member (2009)
English to French
current Mar 11, 2012

current clients then potential clients then friends - from urgent to non-urgent

 
Noni Gilbert Riley
Noni Gilbert Riley
Spain
Local time: 11:34
Spanish to English
+ ...
The ones I feel most like dealing with Mar 11, 2012

My reaction seems to be similar to Ty's.

If I'm waiting for a reply to an enquiry/query, then that will get opened first, and then I can be quite capricious and most unbusinesslike.



 
Interlangue (X)
Interlangue (X)
Angola
Local time: 11:34
English to French
+ ...
Other Mar 11, 2012

Professional mail on my most used professional Webmail, latest on my private/less professional Webmail, ads/spam when I have nothing better to do on the address that serves that purpose
3 Webmail addresses are open on my desk whenever I am at it, so there isn't much I do not take care of before the end of the day. Others (also Webmail version), I open when the rest has been taken care of...
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Professional mail on my most used professional Webmail, latest on my private/less professional Webmail, ads/spam when I have nothing better to do on the address that serves that purpose
3 Webmail addresses are open on my desk whenever I am at it, so there isn't much I do not take care of before the end of the day. Others (also Webmail version), I open when the rest has been taken care of
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keshab
keshab  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:04
English to Bengali
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Current Mar 12, 2012

patriciacharnet wrote:

current clients then potential clients then friends - from urgent to non-urgent


Ditto


 


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Poll: When you access your inbox which emails do you handle first?






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