Do you have lots of emails in your inbox? Do you seem to never be able to shift them? Here are some simple tips to change, and change for good.
Reality: How full is your inbox really? How many messages? How many unread? Does it generally increase or decrease over the course of a day or week and by how much? How good are you at filing or deleting old emails? Imagine: Now you have a sense of the scale of the situation, imagine what it would be like to have an empty inbox and maintain that. How would that feel? What emotions would you experience if that were the case? What might other people say about you if you managed you inbox well and what might that give you?
Stories: What stories do you tell yourself about your emails? “Everyone knows I don’t respond to emails.” “Doing emails is boring and unproductive.” “If it is important they’ll call me.” “I’m just not good at managing my inbox.” The stories we tell ourselves can be uplifting and they can also be limiting. Try shifting the language of the stories you tell yourself:
Once you have decided that changing is advantageous to you, here’s an approach that I have found that works.
You have probably had previous goes at sorting your inbox, maybe setting up folders. Delete anything you no longer need then bundle up what remains into one folder – give it today’s date and call it ‘Archive’. The past is in the past.
Now to the inbox. There are a number of different methods of prioritisation. For emails I prefer the Ds: Do, Delegate, Defer, Delete. Set up four folders of your inbox: Do, Delegate, Defer, and my favourite, Done.
Note down the number of emails in your inbox. Give yourself a set amount of time to sort through them and set a target to get to by that time… Don’t forget to factor in new incoming emails landing during this time.
Going through your inbox, sort them by sender. Pick someone it is important to respond to, your boss for example, then sort them chronologically from that sender and, starting with the most recent, pop them into one of the four categories.
Top Tip: if it will take you 2 minutes or less to deal with it there and then, do it. Then file it under ‘Done’. Two minutes is longer than you might think. Set an alarm for two minutes then sit quietly with your eyes closed until it goes off – imagine what you can do in that space!
Once you have dealt with the top priority sender, deal with things from the next tier, it could be your direct reports, your colleagues, family members.
If you find you are making slow progress, jump to emails from accounts who regularly send you stuff: news or job alerts for example – you might find you can delete rafts of emails in one fell swoop helping you get closer to your target. As you are doing so, it takes a matter of moments to unsubscribe. Be ruthless, you can always rejoin at a later date if you feel you are missing out on something.
Themes. As you go through the inbox you will notice themes – emails relating to a topic, work area, or project you are working on. Rather than trying to create subcategories on the hoof, I like to use an app called Mindly to create a mind-map of things – this can suggest logical groupings. I find that the act of creating a mind map helps your mind compartmentalise things and make connections. You may come back to the map, you may not, the act of creating one is helpful in itself.
An example Mindly mindmap
Once you have reached your target, either a time limit, a set number, or the magic ZERO, congratulate yourself on a job well done. Take a quick look at what and how much is in each folder. What does that tell you about work flows and how you might manage things well?
Refer back to the mind-map you have created along the way to see what it tells you about your priorities and work flows.
Choosing the right place and time to do this will have an impact. Choose a place and time that suits you best. Don’t worry if you don’t get down to ZERO in your first attempt, making progress is what counts.
Once you have got to ZERO, don’t get cross at the next person who spoils it by sending you an email – they are not to know what’s going on for you. Instead, have a plan for maintenance. Some things to bear in mind:
Inboxes don’t manage themselves. Even if you are lucky enough to have someone to manage your inbox for you, you still need to be in charge of it and have a system that works for both of you.
If you can, have a set time(s) each day to keep on top on incoming emails. Remember – keeping on top of incoming messages is a different task to doing work that may or may not be related to emails in your ‘Do’ folder.
If you find you are delegating differently because of this approach – talk to the people you are delegating to. Let them know what you are doing, ask for feedback and tweak your approach to create something that works for others as well as yourself. Delegating is not about taking the monkey of your back and blithely placing it on someone else’s, it is about making sure work sits in the best place, supporting effective collaboration, and contributing to the success of the wider system.
Check in with your ‘Defer’ folder from time to time – weekly is a good start. And move things to a different folder if things change (and they will do).
Aim to reach ZERO on a regular basis. But don’t beat yourself up if you don’t always get there. Stuff happens, priorities change, unforeseen things happen. If you find this is the case, all you need to do is give yourself a little extra time next time you are filing and responding to new incoming emails.
The more you practice this, the better you will become at it.
Don’t forget to check in with yourself. What stories are you telling yourself about you and how you manage emails? If you find that your stories are limiting your ability to keep on top of them, retell the story in an open ended way, for example, “I’m not good at staying on top of emails,” becomes, “I’m not good at staying on top of emails yet.” “I don’t have time to do this,” becomes, “I haven’t found time to do this yet.”
I hope there is something in here that you find helpful. Do let me know what works for you. I’m always keen to learn and share new tips.
Ben
This article draws on NLP ideas on limiting beliefs and from David Allen's 'Getting Things Done'
The Mindly app is available from the App Store and Play Store.