You know how much time it takes to try to stay on top of email, but you may not realize the enormous amount of time and energy that are wasted if you’re using one, two or all three of the most common practices for dealing with it.
These practices were born from the fact that many people leave emails in the Inbox—with or without reading it, replying to it or forwarding it—and if you do these practices, too, you know those emails are building up and scrolling off the screen.
When that happens, it can cause a lot of stress and lost time when you have to go back to find an email, an attachment, contact information, event information or a to-do sitting somewhere in the Inbox. Other important things can be hard to find and manage, too—or they’re missed entirely—such as opportunities, introductions, conversations, ideas, reading and more.
The truth is, NOTHING is best managed while it’s still sitting in the Inbox.
But there’s ONE item that is MOST essential to manage out of everything that arrives in the Inbox.
And those items are TASKS.
Did you know that it’s actually impossible to effectively plan, prioritize and accomplish tasks while managing them ONLY from their sources—like the Inbox—without missing, losing or forgetting something—or a LOT of things?
Yep, it’s true. And do you know how many sources of tasks there are in a typical workday?
There are more than 10.
And email is only one of them.
When it comes to tasks specifically from email, you’ll waste a LOT of time when using one or more of these email management practices, which are all inefficient and ineffective…
- Flagging emails
- Marking emails as “unread” so they appear bold in the Inbox
- Printing emails
- Sending email to yourself to you see them at the top of your Inbox
When you engage in any of these practices, you’re re-visiting and re-reading emails you’ve already seen, but couldn’t do anything with, and valuable time is wasted with the process.
Each time you revisit the same emails, you ask…
- What was this about?
- Why did I flag this?
- What do I need to do?
- Can I do this now?
- Who do I need to talk or email with before I can take action on this?
- What step must I take before I can reply to this email?
- When should I take action if I can’t take any action steps now?
If 10, 20, 30 or more emails are marked for you to return to them, you’ll double the time spent reading your emails and asking the questions above.
If you return to those emails 3, 4 or more times, you’ve now multiplied the amount of time wasted—which is time you’ll never get back.
And you may ask…
“Why is this wasted time? How else would I stay on top of my email?”
Time is wasted, because when you read the email for the first time and discovered what you needed to do, you weren’t able to move the email—or the information or the task it contained—OUT of the Inbox and into the best place where you could best store the information for future reference or manage the task for action.
Even when you know EXACTLY what to do with an email—because you KNOW it’s important and you KNOW you need to keep it—you might not have a ready place to put the task or the information. And even when a location DOES exist, you may not have a reliable routine or process for getting it there.
This is exactly the case when tasks or follow-ups are identified, but there’s NO central system in which to manage them. As a result, a lot of time, energy and effort are wasted trying to remember AND manage tasks, follow-ups and information that get stuck in the Inbox.
Instead, you can take TWO steps to manage email with ease and alleviate the WORRY and stress of missing anything that arrives in your Inbox.
#1 – Create reliable systems to store reference information
You must be able to find important information when you need it—and FAST. This means you must be able to move information OUT of an email and into the various systems that are MEANT for storing those specific types of information.
Examples include putting…
…appointment information on a digital calendar
…contact information into Contacts or a CRM
…papers and files into a physical file drawer
…e-documents and attachments from emails into the hard drive or other e-document library
…emails into email folders
#2 – Use a Central, Digital Task Management System to Manage Tasks
Using a central, digital Task List, where ALL tasks can be documented, is a smart move for increasing efficiency and productivity. All tasks from all sources—including those from email—can be visible in one comprehensive system, but NOT planned for action all in one day.
Tasks should be stated as SMALL action steps (not projects!) with plenty of detail, each with targeted dates of action. Then you can effectively compare tasks and prioritize to make smart decisions about how to use your time.
This creates a plan of action that includes WHAT you’re going to do and WHEN, which is impossible to do on paper—not only because of the 10+ sources of tasks in your workday, but also because of shifting priorities. You must be able to reprioritize quickly and turn on a dime without missing, losing or forgetting anything. Again, that’s impossible to do on paper.
When you have a workday strategy that includes how to manage tasks, email, time and information, you can manage tasks more efficiently and effectively, and you can also save time that’s being lost in the email Inbox from re-reading emails you’ve already seen, but couldn’t do anything with.
Then you can use the time saved for accomplishing tasks a lot faster and easier, and moving projects forward more quickly.
And you can do it all without missing, losing or forgetting anything that arrives in the Inbox—or anywhere else—which means a LOT less stress for you.
