Replacing Email Interruptus With Inbox Zero
I’ve began following Merlin Mann’s advice about dealing with Email, which is based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology.
Mann’s view is that we spend too much time scanning our Email inboxes that are full of old and new messages, which may or may not be useful. Having an overloaded and cluttered inbox contribute to the confusion and stress of modern knowledge workers, because they keep allowing themselves to get interrupted before they achieve meaningful workflow. The Observer cites research suggesting that chronic Email interruptus contributes to workplace stress and a feeling that everything is out of control. See this article.
In such situations, lots of information is buried into one big compost heap so it is not obvious where to look for reference material while future actions are all over the place. David Allen calls this out of control information overload, “stuff”.
A more useful approach is to deal with incoming messages in a ruthless and efficient manner. Here are few useful tips that I have been trying to practice
- Only check your inbox at set periods in the day rather than all the time.
- Only answer Emails that need a response.
- Answer messages when you read them if it takes less than 2 minutes to respond.
- Keep messages short and to the point. Messages should start with the main point and end soon after.
- Messages that take longer than 2 minutes to deal with should be moved into an action folder to remind you to act on it later.
- Create templates for common message types to save time drafting the message.
- Messages that involve waiting for someone to respond to you should be moved to a “waiting for” folder
- Useless Emails should be deleted immediately. Make sure your anti spam filers are working.
- Dealt with messages should be deleted or archived rather than kept in your inbox.
- Make sure that no messages are in your inbox at the end of the day. Messages in the “action” and “waiting for” folders have been put in there for later action.
- Review the “action” and “waiting for” folders when you are processing your Emails.
- Encourage colleagues to write short Emails to you that have actions or useful and relevant information points that are directly relevant to shared projects.
- Discourage colleagues from distributing messages to contact or mailing lists unless it is useful or relevant to all the recipients. General reference material could be posted in an intranet.
If you want to get into the black arts of inbox zero then you should listen Merlin Mann’s recent talk at Google while following the slideshow below. You shouldn’t beat yourself up if you have an out of control Email situation, because Google emplys the brightest software engineering minds who have developed amazing Email tools yet they still need to spend money on productivity gurus to help them make the best use of their software tools.