A lot of software applications have been created over the years to try to help professionals keep up with email. Many offer artificial intelligence based on your email management behavior to try to anticipate your needs. New emails can be moved out of the Inbox before you ever see them and put into email folders. This is not unlike how an Outlook Rule works when it is set up, but both approaches cause blind spots.
Other software allows you to hurl email back out into cyberspace until you want to see it again or, as one of them advertises, they “take messages out of your Inbox until you actually need them.” Oh boy…
Several free email services separate incoming email into multiple “inboxes,” but that means you now have to manage all of those inboxes instead of only one. And some applications promise “radical new organizational ideas” or the achievement of “an ideal work-life balance.” Really?
There seems to be a belief—an expectation, really—that technology can and should save you from email overload.
But unfortunately, in most cases (if not all cases) that is not true and the software that people use is not as helpful as they think. They have SO MANY negative consequences, it’s scary. Here are the top three.
You’re losing control of your work and therefore your progress and results.
Any time you use artificial intelligence to manage your email you’re taking yourself OUT of the equation of working on your work and as a result, you’re losing control.
Your ability to make decisions is hi-jacked and along with that, you’ve lost your ability to…
- Move information from email into the right locations for storage and future reference
- Manage and plan carefully the tasks and follow-ups generated by email
- And prioritize tasks from email with all of the other tasks from the many other sources of tasks in your day.
Any time you bypass an email or send it elsewhere before you ever see it, it’s dangerous. You’re deferring it and letting it out of your sight. Here are the risks…
- It’s too easy to lose track of everything you’ve deferred.
- You have NO idea how many emails you’re really receiving each day.
- You don’t know which emails—and how many—you’ll receive AGAIN on a future day.
- You have NO idea how much time it will actually take to process those emails when they arrive.
- You’ve lost the full view of what’s REALLY on your plate right now.
And all of this means you’ll be LESS in control of your email—and therefore your workload—and not more in control as you try to keep up with email every day.
You’re Losing Time.
If you’re like most people, you probably read and assess a typical email in about 30-60 seconds or in less time if it’s really short.
If you flag an email to return to it later or you mark it as “unread” or you send it back out to cyberspace, you’ll spend time on that email AGAIN when you receive it again later on. You’ll have to re-read the email, ponder what it was about, determine why you wanted to skip it initially and return to it now, decide if there’s an action step, and then figure out what to do with it.
Sadly, instead of making a decision the FIRST time you saw the email, you deferred it. Essentially, this is putting off until another day what you could be doing more efficiently TODAY and it will cost you in the long run.
So, if you’re flagging emails to return to them later, you’re spending LOADS of time re-reading emails you’ve ALREADY seen, but couldn’t do anything with.
And while 30 to 60 seconds doesn’t sound like a lot of time, multiply that time by the number of emails you flagged or deferred in some way—ten, fifteen, twenty emails? Then multiple THAT number by the number of times you will revisit those emails—two, three, four more times?—before doing what needs to be done and finishing with them. At the end of that equation is a LOT of lost time.
You’re Losing Track of Tasks and Information.
When you send emails back out into cyberspace or you flag emails and skip over them until later, you’re making it harder on yourself to manage the tasks, responsibilities and information within those emails. You have no idea what it will take to get things done, meet deadlines, finish projects, fulfill promises, answer questions, read materials and more. Plus, it’s VERY easy to miss important information, deadlines, events and opportunities.
It’s also easy to lose track of the tasks you need to do that were generated by email. Your awareness is down and you’ve given away your power to plan and prioritize those tasks accurately and efficiently with all of the other tasks in your realm of responsibility.
It’s a big risk. Are you willing to take it?
In response, you might say, “But I could tell the email wasn’t a priority.”
But that’s not a good reason to hurl it back out into cyberspace or defer it in any way.
Email still needs to be managed by you. Once you receive an email, it up to you to decide how it’s useful to you—whether for reference or action—and decide what system it belongs in so you can move it there for the best management of that reference information or that task. Otherwise, if it’s NOT useful to you, delete it!
However, if systems for managing information and tasks don’t exist, this is why you’re deferring emails or sending them back out into cyberspace, but neither of those processes are going to serve you well. It’s essential for you to have 100% awareness of all of your tasks and information so you can find what you need when you need it and manage tasks productively and with confidence that you’re working on the right tasks at the right times.
How to take your power back and take control of email.
It’s important to understand that you don’t need any special software, fancy apps or fly-by-night hacks to manage your emails or the tasks and information they bring. You also don’t need to change your email address or declare email bankruptcy.
Keeping up with email is a LOT easier than you think and you don’t need technology to help you manage it. You already have the all of the power you need to take charge of email —and ALL other forms of communication in your workday—once and for all.
Your email Inbox does not need Artificial Intelligence. It needs YOUR intelligence.
Plus, you need a few systems and locations where you can EFFECTIVELY manage the information and tasks that arrive in email. Managing email EFFECTIVELY means you’ve seen the email, you’ve made decisions about the email, and you’ve moved the email—or the tasks or information within—OUT of the Inbox and into other, BETTER systems you already have that are MEANT for managing those specific types of information.
Your goal with email is to PROCESS it OUT of the Inbox.
You may not realize this—as many professionals don’t—that email is NOT best managed while it’s still sitting in the Inbox. So, it’s essential to your productivity and progress to move it along—and not back out into cyberspace—whether it’s the email itself or the tasks or information within.
If you don’t move these emails forward quickly, your progress is not going to be moving forward quickly either.
The process begins with decision making—the FIRST time you see an email. Follow a process to read an email and make a decision about it. It will only take up to 30 seconds to do this, believe it or not. Determine what is useful—if anything—about the email and determine where it goes next. Instead of moving emails back and forth between the Inbox and cyberspace, or re-reading emails you’ve already seen and flagged, make decisions right away about an email and move it FORWARD. Save your valuable time by saving information and tasks right away into the systems you already have access to for storage of reference information or the management of tasks.
Follow these steps and you’ll never have to see an email again that you’ve already seen in the Inbox.
Step #1 – If an email is Junk, mark it as Junk and let it go into the Junk folder in the future.
Step #2 – If an email is not useful to you, delete it. Don’t keep these emails in the Inbox. If you MUST keep it because of your company’s Records Retention Guidelines for email, then archive it.
Step #3 – If you’re receiving email you don’t want to receive anymore, unsubscribe to it. Don’t leave these emails in the Inbox and don’t let them come again. Similarly, you can ask certain Senders in your company to stop copying you on emails on which you don’t need to be copied.
Step #4 – If the email contains contact information you’ll need in the future, save the information into Contacts or in another CRM, and delete the email if it doesn’t contain any other useful information
Step #5 – If an email contains important information you’ll need for future reference, you have choices about where to save the email, the information within the email and/or the attachments. For example, you can save the attachments in the hard drive or wherever you’ve established a reliable e-document library. (Hint: it’s NOT the computer desktop!) And you can certainly file emails in an email folder for future reference, but don’t go crazy here. There *is* such a thing as “over-organizing” emails into too many folders. Other information may go into other systems, like Contacts or go on the Calendar or elsewhere as necessary.
Step #6 – If the email contains a task or a follow-up, add a task on your digital Task list, but not by using the flag. That won’t help you as much as proactively adding a task that fully describes your next action step. Be sure to add all of the pertinent details you’re aware of now, while they’re fresh in your mind and then decide when you’d like to take action, no matter how many days, weeks or months out into the future that is.
Aside from Junk and Spam, every email you receive is meant to be seen and managed by you in a timely manner. Outside of vacations and other scheduled absences, reviewing and managing email is part of your job and must be worked into your schedule so you can stay on top of your work and stay in charge of information, tasks and responsibilities.
So, the question is… would you prefer to turn a blind eye to new email by using some of these apps and email features that permit you to defer or re-route email before you ever see them so you risk missing, losing for forgetting things along the way?
Or would you rather be “in the know,” making decisions with FULL awareness so you can stay in control of tasks and information and therefore be more proactive and productive, and make more steady, meaningful progress?
