Any busy entrepreneur knows that feeling - you open your email in the early morning, or after a long flight from a business trip, and your inbox is literally screaming at you, bursting at the seams with unanswered new mails. A full inbox is a reflection of time constraints, and if you let those emails pile up unanswered, it becomes a pressure point and ends up taking more time out of your day playing catch up. There is also the possibility that lying somewhere in the midst of that huge email backlog is a new business client, news of a new business win, or a new and exciting opportunity opening up for you. Time is often of the essence in responding to these opportunities, so time constraints or not, the trick is to keep on top of those emails and turn them into great conversation starters. Personally, I’m a great believer in tackling groaning email inboxes early in the morning and last thing at night, given that we work across multiple time zones, and when one marketplace closes the other one is still opening. I actually quite enjoy that quiet time in the early hours of the morning to catch up with emails, start conversations with new people coming in to my network, and chat to the amazing women entrepreneurs in my network. It’s a great way of turning what could be a chore and a stress point, into a positive networking time.

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