Keeping My Inbox at Zero

This is the first in a series of posts on useful habits I’ve learned from others and practical experience I've picked up on my own. While what works for me does not always work well for others, I hope to use this as an opportunity to share, inspire others to share, and establish a culture within Lloyd of learning from each other.

One of my experiences, which Bill recently reinforced, is the importance of keeping these posts short. So I’m going to summarize as much as I can.

 People are often amazed when I tell them my inbox always ends the day empty.  While I’m sure many people are capable of managing their lives through their inbox, for me that path only led to anxiety and failure. At one point I probably had close to 1,000 messages in my inbox, and hundreds of sub-folder for storing them. Between tracking the messages I needed to follow-up on and the task of filing every message I was spending hours a day managing my Outlook, instead of using Outlook as a tool to manage my life.

This changed several years ago on a flight to the West Coast .During the six+ hours I cleaned my inbox to zero, reduced the number of folders, and developed a base set of guidelines (which I’ve evolved since) to turn Outlook into the tool it can be, instead of the burden it often is.

If your current system works for you, then read no further. If you’re interested in my experiences, then I’ll highlight them here. If you’d like to discuss further, my door is always open.

The following is how I manage my Inbox to ZERO emails, and my tasks:

1.    I cleaned up my inbox ONCE. and swore never to do it again.
2.    Setup Outlook for NO NOTIFICATIONS. My Outlook and my iPhone do not alert me to new mail. I find it only to be a distraction. No sounds, no popups. A simple envelope icon is the most I’ll allow.
3.    I check email routinely, but not religiously. I look at my email about once an hour. I’ve modified the frequency to accommodate my role and responsibilities at the time, although I’ve learned that I’ve never needed to check it as often as I thought I did.
4.    I almost never respond to an email immediately. I’ve learned to mark it for follow-up and file it. When I do respond, I save it as a draft and revisit ymy draft folder before sending. (THIS MEANS REVIEWING MY DRAFTS FOLDER EVERY COUPLE OF HOURS). If it’s an important email, I almost always forward it to someone to review and/or edit for you. Remember that email does not convey emotional tone. People will interpret an email based on the mood they are in at the time. I try and assume it’s a bad one. Therefore I try and be warm, friendly and mention their name a lot.
5.    Copy only those who need to be copied. Send it to the proper recipients then forward the sent item to anyone else you think needs the info but isn’t required to be part of the chain
6.    Let me repeat: NEVER BCC. Send to the recipient(s) and then forward the sent copy to anyone you wanted to blind copy.
7.    Mark everything as JUNK that can be. Scan JUNK once a day or so. Turn off those annoying checkboxes that pop up every time, if there’s an option to not warn me each time, I select it.
8.    I remove myself from every mailing list I can.
9.    I find that not everything needs to be filed.
a.    You don’t need a folder for everything, Outlooks search feature rocks!
b.    Clean up Threads: Outlook 2010 will clean up threads, getting rid of lots of emails you just don’t need anymore.
10. Establish each emails priority. Is it?
a.    Not Important or Urgent
b.    Important but not Urgent
c.    Urgent but not Important
d.    Important and Urgent
11. Based on the above ratings, I Delete or Deal With the email.
a.    Dealing with involves Delegating and/or Tracking
1.    When doing this, I always try and remember to establish an expectation on time, urgency, and what my needs are
2.    Tracking
a.    I set a task for myself, or
b.    Create an assigned task
12. I manage my task list, not my inbox.
a.    Categorize tasks appropriately.
b.    Set due dates based on your calendar availability and urgency
c.    Change the status as I work on it.
d.    Only look at today.
e.    Clean up the task list at the end of the day
f.     Reexamine the task list first thing in the morning
g.    I keep my thoughts and long-term items in the “No Due Date” category and  create a recurring task to “Review No Due Date Tasks” or use OneNote for general thoughts
                                          i.    If they have moved up in category, assign a due date
                                         ii.    If they no longer have any relevance, mark them complete or delete them
More on this in future posts, or feel free to ask.