Work-Life Innovation |

Update 29-04-2008: This post has been selected as one of the editor’s picks over at Are We Balanced Yet.

How can something so useful be so sucky? Yep, email - you can’t live without it, yet you can’t kill it. For many of us its the primary task stream, with requests for information, meeting invites, FYI’s, Newsletters, dodgy offers on blue pills and so on all landing unceremoniously into an increasingly obese inbox.

For some time now, I’ve been experimenting with different ways automate the handling of my email in order to increase effectiveness in the office. Specifically, I wanted to discover a way to stop the distractions that arise from a constantly pinging email inbox and the compelling desire to deal with each as they come in (reading them, answering them, sorting them, putting them into folders etc). There are many tips out there about the optimal number and kind of email folders to set up, or the benefits of an obsessive inbox clear out every hour or so, or complex and arcane filtering rules that ensure mails from Aunt Beth don’t end up in the folder for CEO communications. Some of these become waaay too extreme and end up costing more time to set up and maintain than they’re worth (I know, believe me I’ve tried!). However there are a couple of things I have picked up that do really seem to work for me. My goal was to limit the distractive nature of emails, and I thought that batch processing them once or twice a day sounded good. However, the nature of my work means that I have to be very responsive to certain emails (i.e. the ones from our client) so checking emails only once or twice a day simply wouldn’t work. So this is what I did.

I set up a mail filter so that any email that *is not* from my client gets put into one mail folder (which could be labeled ‘internal’ or ‘for later’. This allows me to forget about these until the time I allocate to reviewing them. All my client’s mails still come into my inbox, which I check whenever I see my mail application’s ‘new mail’ indicator. This allows me to be responsive to my client’s emails but leaves me free from distracting emails coming from other sources until I decide to review them. To set expectations, I include in my signature a statement that I will only check internal emails twice a day (say, 11am and 4pm) and, that if urgent I can be called on the stated phone number. My client will see this in my signature but since it is directed at internal business e-mailers, it is clear that I am not ignoring their mail.

Since implementing this system, one thing became immediately clear. A good 80-90% of all my emails do not come from my client! Whereas before I was constantly checking what email had just arrived and if it needed attention (after all it might be a client email!) - often getting sidetracked into the unimportant in the process - now I can immediately see when a client email arrives and all others can be ignored until I decide to review them. This allows me to focus more on what really needs to be done right now, and lets me batch review and respond to all other non-urgent internal email when I decide.

Previously I had trouble keeping my inbox at zero, now its a cinch! I’d recommend this system for those of you overwhelmed by vast amounts of email, but some of which you simply cannot afford to miss.

ps. one other tip: filter all newsletters to trash! If its important, you will hear about it from your colleagues.

In the next post I will show you how I tamed the instant messenger beast!

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