Managing email
I don’t know about you, but there are days I dread logging into my email account. If I’ve been away for a number of hours or even all day, I know there’s a lot waiting for me when I get there. Some of it’s important, some of it’s not, but the email in my inbox is treated democratically. That is to say, they all require my attention equally.
I’ve learned to deal with email better by adopting an inbox strategy. There are really three parts to my “system,” and they work well together.
Since we moved our email for burris.com from our own server to a third party server, the crap-checker has improved greatly.
Step 1 – Get a good spam filter and trust it.
After the first few times of checking your spam for mis-files, believe in it. Don’t do anything more than scan the contents of the “junk file,” and then throw it all out. Believe me, if it’s important and it went there first, the sender will try again, maybe even with a phone call.
Step 2 – Do something with each email the first time you read it.
Move it, file it, reply to it, forward it, toss it – do something with it so you don’t “touch” it twice. You’ll be more productive, and, perhaps more important, you’ll reduce the numbers in your inbox. Those emails you simply can’t deal with now because you need something else or because they require a more considered response … move those to a “Later” file and get to them when you can.
Warning: Don’t allow “Later” to become just a postponement. Have rules for that file too. Must be empty by the end of the week? by the end of the day? don’t let those pile up, or you’ll have the same problem all over again.
Speaking of “Later,” I used to have an elaborate filing system – by client, by activity – and drop emails into the appropriate files. Now I limit my files to only a few: “Later,” of course, but also “File” and “Archive.” The first I know I want to touch again. The “File” items may still need to be found for one reason or another, but the “Archive” can go away. Search has improved so much that it’s actually better, I think, to let your computer look for what you’re looking for. So fewer files for me mean better, more compact searches.
And, finally, don’t just sit there waiting for email.
Step 3 – Reserve certain times for reviewing your inbox.
Don’t be a slave to the “ping” of incoming emails. As Randall Stross writes in this NYTimes piece, “Today’s advice from time-management specialists [is] to keep our e-mail software off, except for twice-a-day checks, replicat[ing] the cadence of twice-a-day postal deliveries in [H. L.] Mencken’s time.”
I believe there’s a hierarchy of immediacy in our communications, from the postal letter to the phone call or instant message. Draw out your own priorities and live by them. For me, the most immediate is the IM or instant message. Not much room for pleasantries there, not for sender or receiver. When I send an IM to someone, it’s a balancing act between interruption and need-to-know-now immediacy.
At the other end of my spectrum is a letter in the mail. Most often it’s a “thank-you” or a “confirmation” or, yes, an invoice. (Love those … when they’re outgoing.)
Where does email fit into my hierarchy? Somewhere in the middle, and we should all try to treat it that way. I’m amused by people who expect an immediate response – within minutes – to an email. (“Did you get my email?”) Getting to my inbox once in the morning and once in the afternoon should be quite good enough, especially if you actually deal with it – move it, etc. – rather than postpone it.
These are the keys for me. I’m not the best, not by a long shot. But I dread the inbox a good bit less than I used to.
What’s your idea?