You’ve got a lot of work to do, especially if you own your own business, or you’ve just established a startup. The last thing you want to do is feel like you’re wasting time that could be spent increasing the success of your company.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly how emails are likely to make you feel.

Emails have made staying in touch easier, and in some ways, faster. It means you no longer have to reach someone on the phone or send them a letter. But, most inboxes are out of hand, which means you might spend hours combing through emails, when your time would be better spent doing something else.

Email doesn’t have to rule your life. Not with these four tips.

Reduce the Busy Work Associated with Sending Emails

Sending emails feels like busy work, and in some ways, it is. If you want your emails to get read, and you want the people reading them to respond, they need to be personalized. After all, personalized emails can improve click-through rates by 14-percent and conversions by 10-percent!

You just have to know how to reduce the busy work associated with sending those personalized emails.

Google Sheets can make personalization easy. It does require some work upfront, but once in place, you’ll be personalizing emails like a pro. Especially when you use a companion program, like GMass, to send those emails.

Limit the Times You Check Your Email

A recent study done in 2014 revealed that the average person checked their email 15 times. That’s a lot of time spent in your inbox! It also translates to a lot of stress, and it means there are lots of other things you aren’t getting done because you’re hounding your email.

Instead of checking your email multiple times throughout the day, strive to check your email just three times. That might mean checking for the first time in the morning, once before lunch, and again before you leave for the day. Pick a schedule that works for you, and do your best to stick to it.

Take Action as Soon as You Read Each Message

Many people check their email incessantly throughout the day, looking for a specific message to turn up in their inbox. That usually means reading messages that you make it a point to deal with later.

That’s a huge waste of time!

Instead of dealing with each message twice, only check your email when you can respond as soon as you read each message.

Taking action on each email right away has some additional benefits that include:

• It shows others that you respond reliably
• It gets the ball rolling sooner rather than later
• It can help you keep the messages in your inbox under control

Don’t waste your days drowning in a sea of emails. Prevent email from taking over your day with the tips on this list and you can get back to doing whatever it is you do best.