Your email inbox can be your friend and enemy all at the same time.
Even when you’re not there, it keeps filling up.
There’s ‘helpful’ colleagues who use the c.c. field a little bit too much.
There’s irrelevant junk which increasingly gets past the filters you have.
Now At The Risk Of Stopping You Reading, I’m Going To Repeat Someone Else’s Outrageous Claim
With a little discipline, you can handle 100 emails per hour. According to Microsoft. Now I didn’t believe that for a second. But then when I read about how you can achieve it, even though the numbers don’t quite stack up, I can see where they’re coming from.
But it’s decidedly not desirable! Anyone getting 100 emails per hour will soon not just burn out, but eventually chuck themselves from the nearest window.
They claim that by using the “Four D’s” model for decision making, 50% of emails can be immediately delete or filed, 30% can be completed within 2 minutes or delegated, and 20% deferred to a task list.
And that’s where I’m sceptical, 30% of 100 is 30. If it takes 2 minutes to do, it takes just as long to delegate it if you forward it to a colleague with an instruction. That’s 60 minutes. And some emails can take more than 2 minutes to read in the first place!
But Let’s Go With The Spirit Of The Theory For Now, Because It’s Something We Can All Very Easily Do
Firstly, think about the type of information you receive. They can fall into two categories. Things you need to Action (I’ll come to that in the “Four D’s” in a second) and Reference emails.
Reference emails can easily be filed or deleted once read. An email from Fred saying he needs to leave a bit early tonight can be deleted. So delete it.
You may though get an update from a supplier, a newsletter related to your work or profession. These can either be read and/or filed immediately.
By setting up sub-folders of your inbox, you can keep them out of your main inbox to refer to again whenever you need to. So consider some of the more common sub-folders - “Newsletters”, “Colleagues”, “Suppliers”, “Clients” etc.
By right clicking on an email, you can choose the Move option and select the appropriate folder to file it in.
You should then be left with emails that require action
The “Four D’s”
1) Delete it
2) Do it
3) Delegate it
4) Defer it
So think about action emails now. And start with the first point - delete it. I’m guilty of NOT doing this (as my colleague Steve will attest as he chides me about the size of my inbox!).
If 50% of them can be deleted, by doing so straight away, you have less clutter on the screen in front of you.
And if you immediately defer an email or delegate it, you should only have left the stuff that you need to do.
And that begins to solve one of the biggest problems dealing with email - forgetting it because it’s disappeared off-screen.
How Not To Forget To Action Something - Delegating And Deferring
Those you can do straight away, do them. And then delete or file them.
But when it’s something that needs to be deferred, did you know that you can easily move that email into your calendar? Again, simply right-click the email and choose Move. But this time, don’t move it to a sub-folder of your inbox.
Instead, choose your Calendar or if you prefer your Tasks folder. The body of the email will magically appear in either a calendar item or a task item. And then simply schedule it as a task to be completed.
Exactly the same can be applied to delegated items. Once you have the Calendar or Task item open, you can assign it as a task to somebody else, or invite them to a meeting to it goes directly in their calendar.
If however you don’t have access to someone’s calendar (or your colleague doesn’t appreciate tasks being assigned!), make sure you at least forward the email on with an accompanying message. And don’t forget to file or delete it immediately afterwards.
By following these simple rules and disciplines, your inbox should always be empty at the end of the day, with everything deleted, deferred, delegated, done or filed away for reference.
And with a tidy inbox, you can be sure you’re on top of everything and nothing is forgotten!
17 responses so far ↓
1 Sarah Turnbull // Oct 30, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Very useful I will pass on to my colleagues
2 Steve // Oct 30, 2007 at 3:41 pm
It works this is how I have worked for along time if we can just get you to practice what you preach your mail box would be smaller!!
3 lydia // Oct 30, 2007 at 4:46 pm
For a self confessed horder can I stick things that have been dealt with into an archive folder rather than deleting them?
The idea of deleting things completely gives me the collywobbles.
4 Craig Torrie // Oct 30, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I have used a similar sytem for several years however it requires discipline to make it work.
Currently I get approx. 100 e-mails per day; if all I did was handle e-mails 800 per day would be a major challenge & probably damaging to my health. Thanks for the idea of moving e-mails to the Tasks or Calendar folder
5 Dave // Oct 31, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Collywobbles Lydia :-} fantastic! Archiving is a good idea….but still better not to archive stuff you will never need again so its worth going through your stuff and actualy making a decision. After all, horders are basicaly people who are very indecisive (me included :-} ). You then only need to archive the stuff you will need later and still remove it from your inbox.
I bet some people, if they organise their inbox by the “From” field, will find a lot of email in there from people they dont even know, possibly a lot of SPAM too…may as well just delete that! then do your archive. I do this every now and again and its amazing how much deletable email there is in your inbox. Sales emails, emails asking me to confirm my email address (which once its done you cant use the link again anyway), emails from clients that are not really related to business.
One thing that may be worth a try is to delete emails that start an email thread off, so you can have 5 or 6 emails from the same person and the last one recieved from them contains the content of the other 5 emails. no need to keep these 5, just keep the last one? Maybe!
6 Catherine Lawson // Nov 1, 2007 at 2:54 am
Thanks for the tips Ian - I am the world’s worst for letting my emails pile up.
And I’ll read the ones I need to reply to - decide that it will take me too long to write now and save them for later. Then they get lost among all the spam which I didn’t bother deleting.
Since being ill for the last month, I’ve built up a massive pile too.
How did Tuesday go by the way?
7 Ian Denny // Nov 1, 2007 at 6:17 am
Sarah - glad you liked it - and thanks an awful lot for the donation to Clumber Care.
Steve - Will start practising what I’ve just started preaching!
Lydia - yes, an archive folder is good - and remember that they need to be backed up too
Dave - excellent point on deleting all but the last in a thread
Cath - hope you’re getting better. Tuesday went very well. I stank of Butterscotch and Banana Angel Delight! My brother’s editing the video as we speak so it will be up as soon as possible.
8 Andrew // Nov 1, 2007 at 6:32 am
Its useful for quick messages and replies, but a pain in the a*se for lengthy enquiries as some senders expect an instant answer!
I can cope with what I get of which about half is junk.
9 Allan // Nov 1, 2007 at 6:43 am
(By email)
I get between 10 and 20 emails per hour
Most are necessary but some I delete as being non-esstential.
Yours has fallen into that category
Please feel free to use this feedback in your report
10 Jayne // Nov 1, 2007 at 7:19 am
(By email)
Hi Ian
Honestly, its the amount of unsolicited mail that is my only problem….
takes me off other important projects I’m working on to respond
Jayne
11 Greg // Nov 2, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Hi Ian,
All good sound advice and some of which I’ve used myself for a while. I agree with some of the other comments though that it is the volume of rubbish that is the issue. I know you can sift through it relatively quickly but, could you imagine having to deal with the same volume and mixture of phone calls or snail mail!
Greg.
12 Ian Denny // Nov 2, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Greg,
It is difficult to imagine. Technology has not just spawned email though, as it is easier than ever to mass-produce paper and post it. We can all produce stuff very fast and in higher volumes.
Phone calls have been around in volume for a while.
For me, the pace of life in general has been accelerating for a while. Arguably beyond our ability to keep up.
Maybe we should all lower our expectations of each other and perhaps relax our demands a little!
Food for thought!
13 louise // Nov 4, 2007 at 6:07 am
Ian these are great tips and I have been trying to implement them this week with some success.
My biggest bugbear is people who seem to have a need to cc everything that they find remotely amusing and endless chain letter emails.
Am hoping for an update on the ‘egging’ soon. Cheers
14 Ian Denny // Nov 4, 2007 at 8:57 am
Louise,
The cc field is very much overused! And I’m guilty of it at times. But I’ve found that when you forward a email for someone else to action, if you include more than one person in either the “To” field or the “cc” field, nobody does it.
I think it’s human nature - if someone thinks if they ignore it, one of the others who received the mail will do it, then that’s fine.
Usually, nobody does it. So another tip is to be specific when using the cc field - explain that you are asking the main recipient to take the action, and if anyone absolutely needs to know, then explicitly say that you are cc’ing for information only.
Update on custard pies - did it, and video is being edited this weekend for upload soon.
Was very messy!
15 Barbara // Nov 5, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Ian,
Too often we forget about how much time we spend on emails, so you bringing this issue to the surface is a great reminder.
I’ve never approached my email by utilizing the four “D’s”, but that sure simplifies the task.
I’m pretty good at deleting, but the ones I don’t delete do get lost and forgotten about. Adding folders is a superb idea.
Thank you!
BTW: I’m anxious to see the pie video.
16 Ian Denny // Nov 6, 2007 at 6:55 am
Barbara,
Glad you found it useful. It really helps to make sure you don’t forget to action the important stuff, as well as organising the stuff you need to keep.
An added bonus is that you don’t need to back up as much and it is quicker to do so.
At the time of writing, the video is imminent.
I’ll get a photo up soon too!
17 EMAIL FATIGUE, OVERLOAD, AND HOW TO COPE BETTER THAN EVER « The Chamber // May 6, 2008 at 10:17 am
[…] Back in the real world, let’s look at the stuff that is really possible. Perhaps we can put one foot on the desk. […]
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