Blog
So far, we’ve looked at Just how big this battle really is, we’ve talked about a ‘Fresh Start” and how to “Setup you Email Workspace”. Hopefully, you’ve followed my simply, although not necessarily easy (the difficulty lies mostly in our emotional attachment to our messages), steps. If you have, I can assure you that your inbox is in the best state it’s been in for years. Let’s continue by giving you some mail handling rules.
Three Rules of Email Handling
These rules are not much different than the “best practice” training that you may have had as it applies to handling anything. There are lots of things that require our attention on a daily basis; voice mail, snail mail, ideas that cross your mind that you jot down, things people ask you in conversation, action items from meetings, and the list could go on and on. The way we manage our email needs to be integrated into our overall approach used for managing all of these things that come our way each day. The tools may differ, but the principles we use to handle these action items are pretty much the same. Here they are:
1. Handle the items in order.
2. Handle them one at a time.
3. Never put anything back into your inbox.
Handle the items in order
Don’t jump around! That in itself simply feels disorganized and creates additional disorganization. If you jump around in your inbox to the messages that seem like they would be easier to handle, more interesting or in some way seem preferential, what you end up doing is looking at all the other messages several times before you get around to doing anything about them. This wastes a lot of mind power and it incredibly inefficient. Several years ago, someone told me to handle a piece of paper once and only once. You know the drill, I was looking at it when the mail arrived and putting it in a pile on my desk. Later, I’d go through that pile and decide what needed my attention, at which point I’d decide when something needed my attention. Some of those things would be quickly skimmed and filed in the trash can for permanent removal. Others would be put into anther pile for follow-up later and yet others might end up in my outbox to be filed. If I were completely honest with you, I’d probably have to admit to shuffling things between piles for days, or even weeks, in some cases. Like I said, extremely inefficient! You don’t want to look at an email, say to yourself “not now” and then move on to another one. That will cause you to have to revisit that message again, and possibly again, later on. Each time you do this, you are using valuable time and mind power to do what could have already been done.
So, the simple solution is to go through your inbox in order and address each item as it comes up. Be very deliberate with his step. Don’t worry; you won’t get bogged down by the super long actions items in the middle of one of those messages if you follow the rest of the principles that are coming up.
This is getting a bit long so I think I’ll continue with tomorrows post.
Have a great day,
Roger