What thoughts and feelings do you have when you think about looking at the email inbox for your therapy practice? It doesn’t have to be dread and overwhelm! I will be sharing the exact tips I use to manage my practice’s email inbox every week. These days I manage my inbox with ease, but it wasn’t always that way!
Keeping up with communications can become overwhelming for therapists. Current clients, potential clients and colleagues may be attempting to contact you in a variety of ways which contributes to the potential of something getting missed. Email. Phone calls. EHR messaging. Social media.
Therapists should notify others about their communication policies and preferences while also establishing a system and routine for managing communications. This includes being clear with clients about boundaries and policies around the use of email and communication between sessions.
This post will focus on tips therapists can use to establish systems and routines to manage their email inboxes. If you have a backlog of email, I recommend checking out this post for additional strategies that may be helpful.
Email Tips for Therapists
- Set aside specific time each working day to review and respond to emails. We do not want to be in and out of our email inboxes all day because they can be a huge distraction from the work we want to prioritize.
- Immediately delete emails that you do not need and respond to those that require a quick response. Don’t let these emails build up!
- Batch emails that require a time intensive response or follow up. I suggest getting those emails out of your inbox and using email folders for this purpose. For example I reserve time on Thursdays to wrap up administrative tasks at the end of the week, so I have an email folder labeled “Follow Up on Thursday” where I put emails that require more action if they are not urgent.
- Unsubscribe from email lists that no longer add value. This will limit the number of emails you receive and thus the decisions you need to make about emails!
- Use your out of office email reply to let people emailing you know when they can expect a response. This helps prevent multiple emails from the same person while you are unavailable. You can steal my email script here.
Email is supposed to be a helpful communication tool, not one more thing to contribute to therapist overwhelm! By creating and implementing effective boundaries, policies and systems therapists can use email as it is intended again.
Feel free to share a favorite email tip for therapists in the comments below.