The One Tactic That Will Radically Alter How You Manage Your Email
I’ve come to believe that most people have given up on improving how they deal with their email. They have come to treat it like a trip to the dentist… a necessary evil.
I also believe, however, that if you want to have greater impact in your work day, you MUST address the significant amount of time you are spending buried in a pile of messages. Depending on which study you read, employees spend about two hours per day on email.
The good news is that I have a tactic that can help you finally get control of your email. When I share it in a presentation I see participants write it down, type it in, or nod their head in agreement. They love the simplicity of the model. We all like simple, right?
The bad news is that it’s going to challenge every bad habit you have developed related to how you have managed email in the past. It’s going to feel scary… like walking into an abandoned house on a stormy night scary. But I promise there are no dead bodies or zombies awaiting you (although who knows what is buried in the bottom of your inbox?). Ready to open the door…?
The tactic is 3-21-0 (zero). Simple enough. Here’s the breakdown:
Check your email 3 times per day
Invest 21 minutes each time you work in your inbox
Get your inbox to zero
I’ll give you a moment to process, laugh, groan, or whatever emotion is taking hold of you right now. “Jones,” you scream. “You don’t know my situation. I’d get fired if I only checked my email three times per day.” Others of you are thinking, “It takes me 21 minutes just to delete all the newsletters and needless updates in my inbox. Some of you are laughing as you think of getting your inbox back to zero when it currently has over 30,000 emails in it. Go ahead, get it all out. I can wait.
With all that behind us, let’s look at the real value of the model in helping you finally improve how you manage your email.
Three Times Per Day
Think about how many times per day you check your email now. More importantly, why do you have that type of schedule with your email?
For many people, there isn’t a schedule. It’s something you check when it’s convenient, when you get a notification, or when you are procrastinating on doing something more important. What this part of the model does is force you to get more disciplined about when you check your email. Your number might not be three. It could be five, ten, or even more… but now you have a plan. It helps reduce the number of moments in your work day when you mindlessly wander into your email… and get sucked into a black hole of clicking, deleting, and trying to figure out what needs your attention.
Twenty-One Minutes
Building on the previous idea, we all know those times we think we are going to spend five minutes working through our inbox, and 45 minutes later we still haven’t made much progress. Establishing a time limit of some length forces you to prioritize how you are going to spend your time working with your email. And you work faster when something is timed. It also lets your mind relax because you have built times into your day to manage your email… instead of haphazardly jumping into it when you think about it or a notification lures you in.
Inbox To Zero
This part of the plan always gets laughs from others. But think about what “inbox to zero” represents. A goal. When was the last time you started processing your email with a planned goal instead of attacking it like a brush fire?
“When was the last time you started processing your email with a planned goal instead of attacking it like a brush fire? ”
If not inbox to zero, your goal might be to:
Process emails that have come in since the last time you checked it
Delete unnecessary emails
Read updates from the last week
File emails from the past month
What I really like about having a goal is that you can feel a sense of accomplishment when you are done. You’ve conquered something. Tamed the beast. Calmed the storm. Or whatever analogy works for you.
Three-21-zero isn’t the cure-all for your email overload, but I do believe it can begin to create a more orderly approach to how you deal with the tsunami of messages coming your way every day. Who knows? You might actually start looking forward to checking your email. Okay. Maybe that’s asking a bit too much.
