Stepcase Lifehack: I’ve become an email killer. It’s not that I hate email, it’s that I hate email backlog. It happens to the best of us. We save emails that we can’t initially reply to yet, we hold onto emails that we want to dive into at a later date and we keep emails as a reminder of an action we have to take. The result is usually a very full inbox staring back at us as we try to get the stuff done that actually matters.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
3 Ruthless Email Responses to Achieve Inbox Zero
Stepcase Lifehack: I’ve become an email killer. It’s not that I hate email, it’s that I hate email backlog. It happens to the best of us. We save emails that we can’t initially reply to yet, we hold onto emails that we want to dive into at a later date and we keep emails as a reminder of an action we have to take. The result is usually a very full inbox staring back at us as we try to get the stuff done that actually matters.
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8 comments:
I must admit, I am a guilty non-deleter, my inbox is packed with thousands of emails, mostly spam and unnecessary information. With that being said, I feel little need to delete, but I'm sure that If I ever decide to purge my inbox, it would surely be a glorious feeling. These tips are especially helpful, because sometimes the territory by which one must respond to an email seems vague, these guidelines decode email etiquette in a much clearer way. I will definitely try these three tips- maybe it will help me reach a new level of zen I never thought I could encounter!
I am guilty of keeping emails in my inbox forever. I have emails from October 2009 (when I made myself a gmail account) that I will never need to look at again. I probably have some spam emails that I forgot to delete and some emails asking questions that weren't even relevant a day later let alone a year later. That being said though, I do not agree with this article about there only being these 3 responses. Yes, all emails will fall into the categories of "needs a response," "does not need a response," and "useless and can be deleted," but that does not mean that each of these categories does not have subcategories, and that also does not mean that they should be taken care of and then deleted. There are emails that I have from 2009 that are useless, but there are also emails from 2009 that I can use for reference and that help tell the story of a production or of a process that bears remembering. Keeping them in my inbox means that I can very easily type a keyword into the search box and find that email from 2 years ago that talks about the problems we had constructing that platform or the issues that came up when we cast this person. Because email inboxes are so easily searchable, they are a good place to store emails with information that you might need to find again.
That being said, I do like the idea that you can send an email saying that you will reply in x number of days. So many people have come to expect an immediate response to emails, which has led to people being tied to their email constantly (me included). I might start trying this, but at the same time, it will be pretty impossible to change the expectation of immediate response when it has become such a standard.
I have the most irrational aversion to that bolded number next to the word inbox. As such, I end up checking my email far more often than I need to, and frequently it's checking to see if there's somethign to delete. I did not realize how much time I spend deleting useless email, simply because I'm too lazy to unsubscribe. In reality, I get very little email that isn't university related or spam, yet my gmail is always open, waiting to tell me when there's somethign new for me to delete! This article has prompted me to go through over the next week and unsubscribe to many email lists.
I agree with Cat in that these categories are not so black-and-white and that there are times when e-mails need to be kept for documentation or reference. But I appreciate that this author pointed out the positive aspects of dealing with an e-mail immediately. That is the main point that I've taken away from this. I've been letting e-mails sit in my inbox because they have dates in them that I'll need to pay attention to eventually. Why don't I just put those dates in my calendar NOW and delete the e-mail? Dealing with e-mail right away seems to be much more pro-active in that it forces you to be productive and also ensures that you respond promptly and don't forget about responding until it's too late.
I think that there is another option that is missing here. There are situations where you have to deal with something later. There should be an additional option to turn an email into a task. This means taking the item the email concerns and turning it into an actionable item.
However, the inbox should not be a to-do list.
I also do not like the fact that e-mails are considered to be instant form of communication. Most e-mails I get are informative and do not actually need to be acted on. For these there is only one place... the SINGLE archive folder that is searchable if ever needed.
I'll get an easy 200 messages or more a day, many of which are from mailing lists and the like that take a few seconds to scan the subject lines before I delete them, but there's still another 20-30 a day that need to be at least read. I have yet to systematically apply what the author is suggesting, but I have replied to people asking me to look at something that I'll get to it in 6 weeks, or 3 months, and what I've noticed is that to most people that is interpreted as a polite "no", to the extent that when I do get back to them at that time they are surprised to have heard from me at all.
While the tips in the article are useful, I don't think that they necessarily apply to everyone or encompass the different uses of e-mail. I consider my e-mail to be pretty efficient and organized, and some of these tactics may help me, but as others have said I keep some e-mails as reference. I organize my e-mails into categories and delete what I am sure is not necessary. It could be more harmful than hurtful to get a little over zealous about deleting e-mails. I think the best tactic to conquer e-mail is to just deal with it immediately in whatever system works best for the individual. The way different people go about organizing their inboxes and responding to messages is very personal and there is no overarching right way to go about it.
I have gotten much better this year about archiving and labeling emails, however, if I need to reference an email in the near future I just leave it labeled in the inbox. It may be a better idea to start sending responses as suggested instead of letting items sit. In some ways my inbox has become a check to my to-do list which as David points out is not the best idea. While emails have become more accessible through smart phones, it is important to not always be so attached. Setting aside time to check or respond can help and eliminate some emails with others responding before you to problems.
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