Work Blog: In Search of Inbox Zero, Part 1: Blocking Off Time
This week's work blog is the first in a four part series I did about taming your email. The original post was on April 15, 2021. Originally there was a screen capture where I talk about how much email was in my inbox as of the day I wrote the post, because anyone can claim a number but screen caps take moderate effort to fake effectively. Anyway, by weird coincidence as I'm putting this together the number is 8. Not too shabby. Anyway, beyond that I made a few very minor changes (less than ten words) to remove my company info.
When we discussed blocking off time for focused work, one of the reasons I suggested for blocking off that time was "Get caught up on your email." I'm going to be honest. I've seen your inboxes (well, not yours personally, but the whole genre) and frankly, I'm horrified. So many of you have hundreds or thousands of unread emails in your inbox. One person I assisted had more than ten thousand unread emails. Sometimes you've applied rules to direct some of that email into specific folders, but they're still sitting there unread, waiting for the corporate retention policy to kick in and delete them unseen. Most of the people I've talked to about this feel embarrassed, stressed or even guilty about all those unread emails. Let's talk about how you can ditch the guilt, get a handle on your email, and then stay ahead of it.
If you're wondering what my qualifications are to talk about handling email, here is my inbox count as I write this: 7.
Now that I'm done humble-bragging, why should you even care about heading toward Inbox Zero? Why does it matter?
If you think Inbox Zero is about getting your email down to zero, the answer is that Inbox Zero doesn't matter. The goal of Inbox Zero is not to literally have zero emails in your inbox at any one time. The original user of the term Inbox Zero was Merlin Mann, who says Inbox Zero is “about how to reclaim your email, your attention, and your life. That “zero?” It’s not how many messages are in your inbox-it’s how much of your own brain is in that inbox. Especially when you don’t want it to be. That’s it.”
What Mann is trying to say is that if you are spending your valuable brainpower worrying about all your unread email, that brainpower isn't being used to do actual useful work. While it may be a feasible goal for to get your inbox totally emptied out, that is usually overkill that misses the point. There are a few ways that you can avoid the embarrassment, stress or guilt that you may be feeling.
1. The first approach is to become one with the universe and transcend all human emotions. This approach can be somewhat challenging.
2. A second approach is simply to stop caring. Most of us aren't good at this.
3. The most helpful approach is to actually deal with all that email and then stay ahead of it.
The first approach is outside the scope of this blog, and the second has some serious drawbacks. With that in mind, let's look at the third approach, which in addition to dealing with your email stress also helps make it easier to find the most important things in your email and act on them effectively. How can you get your emails down to this level? Or at least get to the point where you don't have any unread emails sitting around taunting you?
The first step is blocking off some time for focusing on your email. Depending on the volume of email you get every day and the backlog of unread emails you need to deal with, this time will vary. If your inbox has hundreds of unread emails, I recommend starting with 30 minutes a day of focused email time. Dealing with email always requires a certain amount of effort, so schedule this time when your brain is working at its best. I personally feel my brain really kick into gear around 3pm, so I prefer a late afternoon slot. If you're a morning person, do it first thing in the morning. If you get a truly remarkable amount of email daily, consider setting aside two chunks of time a day.
Now that this time is blocked off, what do you do with it? I'd start by reading your newest email. Knocking down a giant unread backlog is hard and is not something you can do in one sitting. Instead, your first goal should be using your focused email time to keep up to date with your newest email. Try to read and resolve everything you got in the last day.
What does resolve mean in this case? At the end of your email focus time, all your new email should be:
- Read
- Deleted if not relevant
- Deleted if handled
- Scheduled for follow up if relevant and time consuming to deal with
- Archived appropriately if needed for reference
"That's great," I hear you say. "But if it was that easy I would have already done it!" You are not wrong. In our next edition, we'll give you three suggestions to help you get closer to Inbox Zero. Well, it's three right now. That might change by the time I publish it!
Thank you for reading. If reading this helped you become one with the universe and transcend all human emotions, or if you just found it useful, hit the Like button. Even better, click "Watch this Page" in the top right-hand corner so that the next edition with those useful suggestions will show up in your inbox... ok, that might be a problem. We'll talk about that next time. Feel free to bombard my inbox by leaving comments!
When we discussed blocking off time for focused work, one of the reasons I suggested for blocking off that time was "Get caught up on your email." I'm going to be honest. I've seen your inboxes (well, not yours personally, but the whole genre) and frankly, I'm horrified. So many of you have hundreds or thousands of unread emails in your inbox. One person I assisted had more than ten thousand unread emails. Sometimes you've applied rules to direct some of that email into specific folders, but they're still sitting there unread, waiting for the corporate retention policy to kick in and delete them unseen. Most of the people I've talked to about this feel embarrassed, stressed or even guilty about all those unread emails. Let's talk about how you can ditch the guilt, get a handle on your email, and then stay ahead of it.
If you're wondering what my qualifications are to talk about handling email, here is my inbox count as I write this: 7.
Now that I'm done humble-bragging, why should you even care about heading toward Inbox Zero? Why does it matter?
If you think Inbox Zero is about getting your email down to zero, the answer is that Inbox Zero doesn't matter. The goal of Inbox Zero is not to literally have zero emails in your inbox at any one time. The original user of the term Inbox Zero was Merlin Mann, who says Inbox Zero is “about how to reclaim your email, your attention, and your life. That “zero?” It’s not how many messages are in your inbox-it’s how much of your own brain is in that inbox. Especially when you don’t want it to be. That’s it.”
What Mann is trying to say is that if you are spending your valuable brainpower worrying about all your unread email, that brainpower isn't being used to do actual useful work. While it may be a feasible goal for to get your inbox totally emptied out, that is usually overkill that misses the point. There are a few ways that you can avoid the embarrassment, stress or guilt that you may be feeling.
1. The first approach is to become one with the universe and transcend all human emotions. This approach can be somewhat challenging.
2. A second approach is simply to stop caring. Most of us aren't good at this.
3. The most helpful approach is to actually deal with all that email and then stay ahead of it.
The first approach is outside the scope of this blog, and the second has some serious drawbacks. With that in mind, let's look at the third approach, which in addition to dealing with your email stress also helps make it easier to find the most important things in your email and act on them effectively. How can you get your emails down to this level? Or at least get to the point where you don't have any unread emails sitting around taunting you?
The first step is blocking off some time for focusing on your email. Depending on the volume of email you get every day and the backlog of unread emails you need to deal with, this time will vary. If your inbox has hundreds of unread emails, I recommend starting with 30 minutes a day of focused email time. Dealing with email always requires a certain amount of effort, so schedule this time when your brain is working at its best. I personally feel my brain really kick into gear around 3pm, so I prefer a late afternoon slot. If you're a morning person, do it first thing in the morning. If you get a truly remarkable amount of email daily, consider setting aside two chunks of time a day.
Now that this time is blocked off, what do you do with it? I'd start by reading your newest email. Knocking down a giant unread backlog is hard and is not something you can do in one sitting. Instead, your first goal should be using your focused email time to keep up to date with your newest email. Try to read and resolve everything you got in the last day.
What does resolve mean in this case? At the end of your email focus time, all your new email should be:
- Read
- Deleted if not relevant
- Deleted if handled
- Scheduled for follow up if relevant and time consuming to deal with
- Archived appropriately if needed for reference
"That's great," I hear you say. "But if it was that easy I would have already done it!" You are not wrong. In our next edition, we'll give you three suggestions to help you get closer to Inbox Zero. Well, it's three right now. That might change by the time I publish it!
Thank you for reading. If reading this helped you become one with the universe and transcend all human emotions, or if you just found it useful, hit the Like button. Even better, click "Watch this Page" in the top right-hand corner so that the next edition with those useful suggestions will show up in your inbox... ok, that might be a problem. We'll talk about that next time. Feel free to bombard my inbox by leaving comments!