I’m a huge fan of zero inbox email. Also, when used effectively I’m a great fan of email, but email efficiency is not the same as email effectiveness. Let me explain.
In the past, I have been guilty of worshiping the great god of email efficiency. Email efficiency involves quickly and efficiently responding to emails. There are a whole series of techniques that enable you to do this and we will discuss many of them in later blogs and how to use them effectively. There are a couple of effective suggestions later in this blog. The problem with responding to all emails quickly is that they usually then provoke a quick response and so the game of ever faster email ping pong begins. This may be efficient at dealing with emails but I have yet to encounter the person who’s objective in life is to be the most efficient emailer. No, what we want is email effectiveness.
To begin with let’s talk about that red exclamation mark !
It’s one of the things that really winds me up. Very occasionally an email is really urgent to both parties but that is extremely rare. Normally ! means “I have left something to the last minute and now we both need to drop everything and sort it out.” It probably came about because everyone was so busy efficiently answering other, non important emails and attending other, non important meetings that the important stuff got left to the end. We have a supplier to one of our businesses that sends every email with the red mark. That means none of their emails are treated as priority, because none of them are. It’s actually all about priority.
If you want your email responses to be effective then don’t be too efficient. Do those things that really matter first. maybe use the The Ivy Lee Method – How To Have An Effective Day method to decide the order of things. That’s my preferred approach.
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE NOTIFICATIONS ON SO THAT A DEVICE PINGS EVERY TIME YOU RECEIVE AN EMAIL!!!!!! The notification ping is the sound of your life being hijacked by other people and stealing time you will never get back.
When you do address your emails, quickly delete those that need deleting, file those that need filing and deal with the others in order of importance – not chronological order. If you get those emails that are “round robin” ones – the ones with multiple recipients that require some sort of reply then wait until everyone else has replied before you chip in. Better still, discourage this nonsense by replying to the sender only. That way they will have to coordinate all the replies.
Efficient and productive email processing just leads to more email being heaped upon you. Effective email moves you and / or your organisation towards the ultimate objective.
I don’t want a reputation for efficiently dealing with emails. I want a reputation for effectively getting things done.
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