Unload Email Overload

Balboa Press

Contents

Preface................................................................ixAcknowledgments........................................................xiiiIntroduction...........................................................xvOne Principles.........................................................1Two Processing Method..................................................9Three Personalizing Your Email Experience..............................23Four Detailed Inbox Processing.........................................33Five Sending an Email..................................................49Six Group and Team Email...............................................59Seven Special Applications.............................................71Eight Exploring Productivity: A Guide for Managers.....................83Appendix Mastering Email™ At-A-Glance............................105About the Author.......................................................107

Chapter One

This chapter provides you with the underlying principles of MasteringEmail. It will show you how to relieve the anxiety of email overload by spending less time processing messages and more time doing actual work. In addition, your colleagues will benefit by your example, and your life will get easier as they follow your lead, making for a healthier work/life balance for everyone. Imagine the joy!

Principle 1 Maintain separate work and personal mailboxes

Create two email addresses, one for personal email and one for business email. Large organizations require that you do this for a good reason: They know that the availability of personal email will distract you from the job you are being paid to do.

Spending time on pictures, jokes and personal matters robs your focus and can distract your colleagues, especially if you forward to them. On the job, paying attention to business is what's ethical and courteous. Personal email, perusing the web, and having fun on the computer are best done when you are not on company time. Redirect personal email to your personal account—better, let your assistant do this, if you have one—and explicitly ask friends to use your personal account for personal email. In a short time, this change alone can significantly reduce the number of emails arriving in your office inbox.

Principle 2 Do not surrender today's plans to today's email

Don't think of incoming email as a spontaneous ToDo list, unless it's your job to respond immediately to incoming email. Instead, discipline yourself to use your email to build a task list, arrange your calendar and organize your work. The way to save yourself from surrendering today's plans to today's email is to plan your work and work your plan. That way, you should be able to get your work done and go home at a reasonable hour.

Email sent or received today should only be important to your near future. If input is required for today's work, pick up the phone.

Principle 3 Use administrative assistance

If you are fortunate enough to have an administrative assistant, have your assistant make a pass through your email before you do. A well-briefed assistant can monitor your incoming email more frequently than you can, and— simply by putting articles and proposals into a reading file and forwarding emails you would normally delegate to others—can help coworkers get on with business, eliminate junk from your queue, and prevent you from becoming the bottleneck. This is a big one; start today. Your assistant, according to your instructions, can then leave in your inbox only important items upon which you must take action. Personal assistants are smart and understand what is important to you. Discuss how you would like to work together. Listen to them. Trust them! They will like that.

Most upper-level managers do have administrative assistants that review and process their email. If this is the case, when writing to them, do not carbon copy their assistants. Telling this to your people can eliminate hundreds of carbon copies.

Principle 4 Batch process email by appointment with yourself

This principle, in particular, is essential to managing your email effectively and relieving overload.

If receiving and responding to email is your job, as in customer or technical service, each arriving email is a priority that requires your full attention. But for most of you, this is not the case. Email is just a communication tool, not a priority and not meant for immediate reply. That being so, it is best to ignore arriving email and evaluate it in context with other communications, such as telephone calls, memos and face-to-face meetings—just one business task to perform among all others. When it comes to email, make appointments with yourself to process email and, during that appointment, do nothing else. This principle will stop email from managing you and stop you from constantly checking your email. Acting on each email as it arrives will only complicate your life. Discipline yourself. Turn off the email alert on your Smartphone, and process email only when you plan to do so.

Let your colleagues and team members know that you plan to process your email at scheduled times each day. Tell them not to expect a reply for perhaps a day. Suggest, in cases of emergency or urgency, that they phone you. By all means have such a discussion with your boss and agree mutually on a plan. Setting expectations will reduce any criticism that might come your way for being nonresponsive and accrue credit to you for using your time wisely.

Principle 5 Process email last in, first serve

Process email last in, first serve rather than first in, first serve—let the last email you receive be the first one you process. Last in, first serve makes more sense because it can eliminate unnecessary work. Your inbox might contain two or three sequential emails sent to you over time. The last email might say forget about the first two emails. If you process your inbox first in, first serve, you could end up responding to email that no longer requires a response. Last in, first serve can save you from wasting time and, maybe, appearing foolish. You learned this technique in your first management course, remember?

Principle 6 Make three deliberate passes

As you batch process your email, you will find that messages can be handled effectively with a quick scan through your inbox followed by two specific passes. During the scan, look for very important email—from the boss, surprises and anything requiring immediate input for you to move forward with top priorities. During the first pass, remove all distractions and act on the items your colleagues need from you in order to get on with their work. Process each email one time and remove it from your inbox. Save email requiring more thought and detail for the second pass—work planning, updating your calendar and scheduling time for your priorities, tasks and obligations.

Principle 7 Delete aggressively

When processing email during your scheduled times, delete aggressively! Delete carbon copies, threaded email, information that would be nice to know or you think you might like to have some time in the future. And after taking appropriate action on any particular item, delete that email....