This article was originally published in The Simplifier #76.
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Article: To Conquer Your Inbox, Become an Email Shape-Shifter
By Shawn Tuttle
Does this describe you?
- Your email inbox is at zero several times a week.
- You quickly find reference emails on demand.
- You open most emails once, and only once.
If so, congratulations! Your email management system is totally dialed in!
If not - if your email inbox is at 1,000 messages and multiplying - keep reading…
You know the old saying about what would happen if you put a thousand monkeys in a room with a thousand typewriters, right? They’d fill your email inbox with a bunch of useless crap every day! ;) Seriously, though, it’s a good thing that’s not happening, since your inbox is probably already overflowing so bad that you’re considering renting a sump pump. You’re not alone…which is why I made sure this article isn’t just another simple listing of email management “best practices” from the leading productivity experts.
Don’t worry—you’ll get your tips. “Best practices” are called that for a reason, and I’ll definitely review some of them. What I don’t want to see happen, though, is for you to read the below list of pointers, and nod or shake your head a couple of times and then think: “This wouldn’t work for my situation; how could they possibly know how crazy my email situation really is?” and then continue in your pattern of feeling overwhelmed by your email.
We’re going to spend a little time in Why-Land to explore how your perspective and intention is so important regarding email. I really want you to get serious about getting control of your inbox—because this is a life or death situation.
Consider the danger
Well, your life isn’t in danger—but your life’s dreams are. If a dream were a person, she’d be a sensitive, shy little kid who needs your encouragement and support. She retreats from lack of attention. She needs to be coaxed out of her shell and shown that she can rely on your commitment, that she can trust you to take care of her. When you provide her with a positive and supportive environment, she thrives.
But how does an out-of-control inbox affect your dream cultivation? Repeatedly sifting through your inbox takes time. High numbers of emails feels weighty, and the thought of clearing them all out can make you feel overwhelmed and provides plentiful excuses for procrastination. Seeing defeat pass over clients’ faces when asked about their email situation, to me, says it all.
Getting the picture? Being victimized by “out of control” email is detrimental to your psyche. Are unmanageable emails worth feeling bad for? No! Are they worth sacrificing your dreams for? No!
Shift your approach to email
Merlin Mann used this apt metaphor as a comment on how many people lose sight of their purpose: your job is to make sandwiches, not to continually re-stack the orders.
Losing sight of what’s important causes more than inefficiency. There’s so much more at stake!
For too many people, email has become a growing, cancerous mass invading effectiveness and morale. If your situation were out of control because you chose, instead, to spend more time writing your novel, I’d be more compassionate. But the truth is, the culprits are usually indecision, laziness, and/or lack of systems. And even though you’re in charge of these things, paradoxically, they can leave you feeling the victim.
Instead, choose to be the ER doctor who deftly wields the laser to zap those emails with focus and precision. Those little messages aren’t going to get out of control on your watch! You know that the health of your patient is at risk. You are fully capable of handling the situation and do so with a few clicks of the keyboard.
Shift how you think of the inbox
To look at this from the (non-digital) “real world” perspective, pretend you have a store that sells CDs. You are in charge of dealing with the boxes that UPS drops off on a daily basis. Do you leave all boxes in the “incoming” pile and expect customers to just find what they want? Not if you want to keep your customers happy. Instead, you unpack the boxes, sort the contents, and then do a set of actions that gets the CDs to the next step of their existence. You might sort by: special orders, current hits, and regular stock.
- Special orders then require your to call the customer.
- Current hits need to be integrated into a “current hits” display.
- Regular stock needs to be sorted by genre and put out on the shelves.
Does this mean that you are going to perform each of the above actions as soon as you open each box? No. You’ll unpack the boxes, sort the CDs, breakdown the boxes, and then decide which is most important to do or delegate first based on what the rest of the day looks like, who’s on the floor, etc.
I’m describing a lot of people in different scenarios in this article. (more…)
