Now that you have a good handle on how to deal with information overload and paperwork, there’s one more source of frustration that plagues just about everybody these days: email. On the one hand, it’s a brilliant way of communicating with people around the world almost instantly and it has revolutionised how we work. On the other, due to spam and the sheer number of even legitimate messages you get, it is also incredibly annoying and can easily pull you away from the things that should be taking up your time and attention. Not only that, sending emails can also be full of pitfalls. In this chapter you’ll find the best strategies for making email the great tool it was always designed to be.
Unless you’re responsible for, say, the defence of the Free World, do you really need to read every email the moment it comes in? Probably not. In that case, set a number of times each day that you will check your email. Do you have a number in mind? Good, now cut it in half. There are very few people who really need to do this more than four times a day, and three or two times a day is even better. For starters, try this schedule:
If you have been in the habit of responding to emails immediately and are worried that people will wonder what’s going on if you stop suddenly, you can turn on an automatic message, as you may do when you’re going to be out of the office. It can say something like, “In order to increase my efficiency and therefore also my ability to help you, I’m now checking my emails at 9 am, 2 pm, and 5 pm. If you have something that needs my immediate attention, please give me a ring on (phone number).” That way people who do have an emergency won’t feel upset, and generally a phone call is a better way of handling a super-urgent matter anyway. What you’ll discover is that there are actually very few super-urgent matters.
If you have trouble sticking to set times, another approach is to check email only between tasks. If you do it during tasks, it will destroy your focus.
Jot down the times of day you are going to check email from now on. Also make a copy of these times and post them on or near your computer.
The fastest way to deal with an email is to delete it. Obviously it’s easy to do this with any spam that gets through. If too much is getting through, adjust or replace your spam filter. However, there are a lot of emails that seem like they might be interesting. These become a way of killing time instead of doing the 20% of your most valuable tasks. If you have been using them this way, consider using one of the Alter Egos you developed in Chapter 7 – Attila might be a good choice – and zap ruthlessly. Here are two big categories of email that are ripe for zapping:
Which of the Alter Egos you developed in Chapter 7 will you now use to zap irrelevant emails?
You’ve deleted, now delegate. If an email asks you to take some action, don’t automatically do it. First consider whether it would be a better use of someone else’s time (assuming, of course, that you have the authority to do this). If so, forward it to that person with a note saying what you want them to do. This could be as simple as, “Maria, please handle this”, or it might require more detail. Then let the sender know that you’ve delegated it and that any further discussion of it should be taken up directly with Maria. The more you can eliminate yourself as the person in the middle, the better. This applies even to small things. For instance, sometimes I receive a message from one of my websites saying that one of the links is dead or a particular video doesn’t play correctly. My first impulse is to go to the site myself and check it – even though I have no idea of what to do if it is broken. Now I just pass the email along to my tech person and ask him to let me know when it’s been fixed or to notify the sender if the problem is at their end.
If the person to whom you want to delegate is a colleague on the same level as you, rather than a subordinate, you’ll have to handle it differently; namely, by going back to the sender and convincing them that Maria is the more appropriate person to handle this task. You may be tempted to handle it yourself, especially if it doesn’t take too long, but when you do that you’re also establishing the precedent that you’re the one to come to whenever something similar needs to be handled in the future.
If there is no person handy who can deal with the task, and especially if you are self-employed, consider whether you could outsource it to a virtual assistant or via a relevant service.
Who can you think of, to whom you could delegate at least some of the email-related tasks that you do now?
For the remaining emails you can use a system of virtual folders identical to the real folders recommended in the previous chapters. Anything you need to handle today can go into a folder with the number of today’s date, and then you can schedule it at the time of day that suits you best. Generally it’s best to cluster these tasks rather than doing them piecemeal. If the task can wait, then you can put it into a folder with another day’s date and tackle it then. If it concerns something that will need your attention more than a month from now, you can put it into the folder for that month.
If you are handling several projects at once you may want to set up a separate system for each one. When you’re planning your to-do list for the following day, you can quickly go through the folders for that day and work out your schedule. An alternative, if you like to see things more openly than that, is to have a separate calendar for each project and put the tasks on to the calendars.
You may already have another way of sorting and filing your emails that you prefer. That’s fine – the main point is not to let them pile up into a wodge of a hundred or more that you keep having to review each time you open your inbox.
There are a couple of types of emails that are particularly troublesome:
“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of light of letters, is simplicity.”
Walt Whitman (1819–92), American poet
The easiest way to know what to do when sending emails is to think about all the things that others do that really annoy you or waste your time, and then don’t do those. Here are a few specific methods that will make people appreciate getting emails from you:
Here’s the key message of this chapter: control email rather than letting it control you. It’s there to serve you, not to frustrate or annoy you. You can choose whether and when to read it. You can choose whether and when to answer it. You can even train people regarding what to send you, and the best manner in which to send it. And when you send email to others, you can model these effective behaviours so that both you and the recipient benefit. All this will prevent email from distracting you from your most important tasks.
Now that you know how to handle email without stress, the next chapter provides tools for mastering meetings and networking.
At www.focusquick.com you’ll find a short video about using Alter Egos to handle email.