Quick Quiz: Who’s in charge of your work day?
YOU! That’s right.
Now, who’s in charge of all of the various things that enter your office, your computer and your workday, like tasks, papers, files, contacts, e-documents and email?
Right again… it’s YOU.
And who’s in charge of making decisions?
Yep… that’s you! (You’re on a roll!)
So, why are you letting your EMAIL INBOX call the shots and drive your day?
Email is just one of the MANY items you have to manage to make the progress you want to make in your workday. If you let email overshadow everything else, then you’re letting email drive your day and you’re just along for the ride, which hurts your overall productivity in more ways than one.
Read on to understand how to efficiently and effectively manage email, and take control… FOR GOOD.
Are you waiting for your Inbox to tell you what to do next?
You know how it goes… you reply to one email after another as they pour in. You jump on the email pop-up notifications, even when you know they’re pulling you away from something important. You get stuck in the email Inbox for what seems like FOREVER and you wonder when you’ll EVER get to your other tasks and projects. More often than not, you feel like you’re just waiting for your Inbox to tell you what to do next.
It may seem easier to just let email drive your day, because it FEELS productive. When you reply to, forward, delete and file emails, it feels like you’re getting things done. And you are, but you’re working in a much more REACTIVE mode, which means you’re missing a system or a method to TRULY process it, which makes you less productive. Here are a few reasons why…
- You’re not likely closing the loop on a lot of those emails you may have already worked on.
- You run the risk of missing, losing or forgetting what lands in your email Inbox and scrolls off the screen: opportunities, events, questions, tasks, follow-ups, and more.
- You’re wasting time re-reading emails you’ve already seen, but couldn’t do anything with.
- You’re not working on tasks and projects that need your attention. You could be using your time more effectively to make progress toward established targets and goals.
If it seems like you’re not getting anything done outside of your Inbox, because email is an endless magnet, you might be right. But email is NOT in charge of your workday. YOU are.
It’s time to take your power back.
Here are a few steps you can take to get you going in the right direction and help you take back control in your workday.
- Manage emails according to reference and action.
What matters most in the process of managing email is what happens with an email AFTER you’ve read it. Once you’ve read it, replied to it, or forwarded it, then what? You need to move it along. It doesn’t belong in the Inbox anymore.
You may be asking at this point, “How can I move emails out of the Inbox if I’m not finished with them?”
The answer is that if you’re not finished with them, then you likely have something to read, do, file or save and if that’s the case, those emails should be moved into other, BETTER systems. These systems are already available to you and they are MEANT for managing the various types of information that arrive in email. So, once you’ve read an email it’s time to move it along.
Where, you ask? To another place for reference or action. Otherwise, it should be archived or deleted.
And why? Because email is NOT best managed while it’s STILL sitting in the Inbox.
You know this, too, because even though you may use the email flag to call attention to certain emails and remind you to return to it later, you understand the flag is basically useless. It’s not serving you in being more productive or helping you make faster progress. It doesn’t help you identify a next action step or help you prioritize tasks.
An email flag ONLY tells you to come BACK to an email, but it does not inform you about WHY you need to return to it, what you need to do, when you need to do it or how it stacks up against other tasks you need to do.
This is when LOADS of time are lost, because you end up re-reading emails you’ve already seen, but couldn’t do anything with. Your emails are stuck in the Inbox, which means you’re stuck, too.
Instead, start making decisions to separate reference from action, and archive/delete the emails you don’t need or you don’t need to SEE any more. Get ALL of them OUT of the Inbox, once and for all.
So, where do you put emails for reference or action? Read on to understand the systems you need for each of these categories.
- Get systems in place.
Using established systems is the only way to manage email efficiently and get emails OUT of the Inbox. Once you get to zero, you will have TOTAL clarity of responsibilities, appointments, questions, tasks, follow-ups, information and so much more.
You may be making tons of decisions about emails, yes, but one of the MAJOR reasons you’re not moving those emails out of the Inbox is because you don’t know where to put the information, attachments or tasks.
But there ARE systems available. You just might not be using them or you don’t know HOW to use them, or you don’t trust them.
When any of these are true, you’re likely leaving emails in the Inbox and losing a LOT of time SEARCHING for emails, attachments and information when you need them. When information and tasks are NOT in the systems that were MEANT for storing or managing those, you have to search one BIG bucket—the Inbox—which takes time away from you that you could be spending more productively.
REFERENCE: Emails that contain information you want to find again in the future require places to be established for the storage of the specific bits of information, whether it’s for attachments, information in the email or the email itself. Some of the most common systems for reference include a Contact system or a CRM to store contact information, an e-document library for attachments and e-documents, a file cabinet or file drawer for printed materials, a Calendar for appointment information, and email folders for storing emails.
ACTION: When an email contains a task or a follow-up to do, you need a place for managing those, too. This is when a central, digital task management system will serve you best. Without a system to plan, prioritize and accomplish tasks, you’re leaving tasks at their source—including in the email Inbox—where it’s likely something will be missed, lost or forgotten. Other sources include phone calls, texts, meetings, the paper and files on your desk as reminders of things to do, and many more. And when a to-do list is created on paper, that becomes yet another source of tasks.
It’s essential to have a single location—a digital Task List—where you can manage ALL tasks, no matter the source or when you’ll take action. (And HINT: a task app on your phone is NOT enough. It’s still a stand-alone to-do list that cannot connect to everything else you’re managing.)
Once you have your systems established and ready to go, the next thing you need to do is…
- Make more decisions more often.
There are two ways to be more decisive when managing email, which will support you in being more efficient, effective and productive, and will ultimately help you use your time better for making faster progress.
- Be more decisive about the VALUE of what you’re reading. Slow down. Focus. What’s important about this email? Is it important to keep for future reference? If so, where can you store the information, the attachments or the email itself? Are there any action steps to take? Should you keep this email at all? Once you decide how it’s useful to you, move it OUT of the Inbox and into where it will be best stored for future reference or best managed for action.
- Be more decisive about WHEN to look at email and when to turn away. Just because an email lands in the Inbox doesn’t mean to have to look at it instantly. If you have trouble resisting the pull of email during the day, the following steps can help.
Turn OFF email notifications that alert you of new email. Email notifications only worsen reactivity. Turn these OFF so you are never pulled away from something else you’re focused on, whether that’s a person standing in your office, a person you’re talking with on the phone, or the work you’re doing on a task or a project.
4. Understand the difference between CHECKING email and PROCESSING it.
Briefly checking your Inbox for urgent issues is different than spending a chunk of time actually processing email.
“Processing” email doesn’t just mean replying to, forwarding, deleting, and filing emails. It ALSO includes saving necessary contact information into your Contact system and saving attachments in the hard drive or in another e-document library. It also includes adding tasks to your ONE, central, digital Task List. And after ALL of these steps, those emails should be moved entirely OUT of the Inbox.
Feel free to CHECK the Inbox at any time, of course, but if you’re not ready to stay and PROCESS email for a little while, because you have an important task or project to work on, that’s fine. Just check it and don’t get sucked in. And when it’s time to PROCESS email, get the Inbox back to zero.
5. Alternate periods of time for working on tasks and working on email.
To be more productive overall, there has to be a BALANCE between managing email and working on tasks and projects, as well as taking part in calls and meetings, just to name a few of the major parts of your workday. Having this balance will ensure you put your time and attention into the MOST important tasks FIRST.
Get a task or two accomplished from start to finish and then process email for a period of time. The length of time for each stretch and the number of times you may work on email throughout the day will vary depending on how many emails you get each day and whether or not you’ve gotten to zero yet in the Inbox.
But no matter what, it’s important to focus on only ONE thing at a time: tasks or email. Then toggle back and forth from one to the other throughout the day.
With email increasingly on the rise each year, there’s NO time to waste in learning how to manage it more efficiently and effectively, because email isn’t going away anytime soon.
Only YOU have the power to decide when to look at email, when to turn away from it, and what to do with each and every one of them. And moving emails OUT of the Inbox becomes MUCH easier when you actually have the right places to put information, attachments, and tasks. So, to sum it up…
- Establish systems/locations in which to store various types of reference information.
- Establish ONE central, digital Task List for action steps.
- Unsubscribe to emails you really don’t need.
- Ask to be removed from CC lists if you don’t need to be in the loop.
- Mark emails as “Junk” or “Spam” (don’t just delete them)
- Make more decisions more often about what is USEFUL to you. No one knows the value of the emails you receive better than you.
- MOVE emails OUT of the Inbox. They don’t belong there anymore.
And when you get to zero and understand how to keep your Inbox low or at zero all the time, then email isn’t in charge of your time anymore. You are.
