Work Blog: In Search of Inbox Zero, Part 3: Stop Email Before It Arrives
Part 3 of 4. Original post was on April 29, 2021. I made some minor modifications to remove references to non-Outlook systems, e.g. genericizing our issue tracking system and community forums.
You blocked off time every day to focus on email. You worked hard to get closer to Inbox Zero by resolving email, or at least to read and resolve everything you got in the last day. Now that you can feel the stress floating away, how can you make this job easier in the future by reducing the amount of email coming in? I'm glad you asked!
Unsubscribe Ruthlessly
If you're like me, a big chunk of your daily email comes from automatic notifications in various systems. Automatic notifications can be great for alerting you about things you care about, but if you're getting hundreds of them a day, they can overwhelm your defenses and drown the important items in a swarm of trivia. Whenever you open an automatic notification, consider not just whether you need to do anything right now, but if you will EVER need to care. If you don't think you will, take the extra second to unsubscribe before you delete it altogether.
As a personal example, in 2020 I manually imported small amounts of data from three different systems for three different teams into our issue tracking system. In total, there were maybe 250 total items. Because I created the items in the issue tracking system, I was automatically subscribed to those tickets. It turns out that I am not working with those three teams anymore, so now when an update comes in for one of those tickets I unsubscribe. Just like that, I never need to care again.
If the system that is sending you notifications supports daily digest emails, consider switching to them, especially if the information contained is mostly just for your own knowledge. This can reduce a lot of email duplication.
Use Rules on Low Priority Items
There will be notifications from a specific system that you may want to see but which will rarely require action or which do not need an immediate response. These are perfect for Outlook rules. Set up a rule to throw them all into a folder on arrival. Then, when you are in your focused email time you can knock out your inbox first and then work on any folders you have set up.
I personally do this for my subscriptions to our customer forums. I am subscribed to a few forums where the questions and responses are relevant to my job, but I am not responsible for fast responses to those questions. As such, saving those notifications until I've dealt with the rest of my inbox is totally acceptable.
If you have a folder like this that, it may make sense to block off separate time at less frequent intervals specifically to deal with the emails in that folder. I don't get quite enough emails from the customer forums to justify that, but it's not all about me!
Get Your Personal Email Out of Your Work Inbox
Back when I was a people manager, one of my team members left the company. I was given rights to his email for 90 days after their departure so I could monitor it for anything important coming in. Since this person didn't really have a customer facing role, not much important from a work perspective came in. However, I saw that he had used his work email for any number of personal sites, including a site for his investments! I got in touch with him and he was able to change them all to his personal email, which in the case of the investments site required me to keep an eye out for the "if you meant to change your email on this account, click this link within 30 minutes" message. I was happy to do it, but imagine the hassle for him if I hadn't been paying attention! Given that all of us can sign up for a free high quality personal email address in about 30 seconds and then walk around with a computer in our pocket that gives us access to said email address, there is no excuse not to move all your personal stuff off your work address. Not only will it reduce the amount of email you need to deal with at work, you can then apply all these tips to your personal email!
There is a Light at the End of the Inbox
If you block off time every day and apply these tips consistently, eventually you will find that you are always caught up with all of your email from the last day. Congratulations! Now that you've reached that milestone, use your remaining focused email time to chip away at the unread backlog. The good news is that because that email is probably going to be much older, a lot of it is probably no longer relevant and can be dealt with faster. In our next post, we'll talk about some strategies for quickly dealing with old email. These strategies are also very helpful when you're facing (ok, dreading) a stuffed inbox on your return from PTO.
Thank you for reading. Don't forget to feed the blogger with comments and the Like button. Click "Watch this Page" in the top right-hand corner for future editions, unless of course you choose to Unsubscribe Ruthlessly so don't have to deal with the automatic notifications crowding your inbox, in which case your loss we'll understand.
You blocked off time every day to focus on email. You worked hard to get closer to Inbox Zero by resolving email, or at least to read and resolve everything you got in the last day. Now that you can feel the stress floating away, how can you make this job easier in the future by reducing the amount of email coming in? I'm glad you asked!
Unsubscribe Ruthlessly
If you're like me, a big chunk of your daily email comes from automatic notifications in various systems. Automatic notifications can be great for alerting you about things you care about, but if you're getting hundreds of them a day, they can overwhelm your defenses and drown the important items in a swarm of trivia. Whenever you open an automatic notification, consider not just whether you need to do anything right now, but if you will EVER need to care. If you don't think you will, take the extra second to unsubscribe before you delete it altogether.
As a personal example, in 2020 I manually imported small amounts of data from three different systems for three different teams into our issue tracking system. In total, there were maybe 250 total items. Because I created the items in the issue tracking system, I was automatically subscribed to those tickets. It turns out that I am not working with those three teams anymore, so now when an update comes in for one of those tickets I unsubscribe. Just like that, I never need to care again.
If the system that is sending you notifications supports daily digest emails, consider switching to them, especially if the information contained is mostly just for your own knowledge. This can reduce a lot of email duplication.
Use Rules on Low Priority Items
There will be notifications from a specific system that you may want to see but which will rarely require action or which do not need an immediate response. These are perfect for Outlook rules. Set up a rule to throw them all into a folder on arrival. Then, when you are in your focused email time you can knock out your inbox first and then work on any folders you have set up.
I personally do this for my subscriptions to our customer forums. I am subscribed to a few forums where the questions and responses are relevant to my job, but I am not responsible for fast responses to those questions. As such, saving those notifications until I've dealt with the rest of my inbox is totally acceptable.
If you have a folder like this that, it may make sense to block off separate time at less frequent intervals specifically to deal with the emails in that folder. I don't get quite enough emails from the customer forums to justify that, but it's not all about me!
Get Your Personal Email Out of Your Work Inbox
Back when I was a people manager, one of my team members left the company. I was given rights to his email for 90 days after their departure so I could monitor it for anything important coming in. Since this person didn't really have a customer facing role, not much important from a work perspective came in. However, I saw that he had used his work email for any number of personal sites, including a site for his investments! I got in touch with him and he was able to change them all to his personal email, which in the case of the investments site required me to keep an eye out for the "if you meant to change your email on this account, click this link within 30 minutes" message. I was happy to do it, but imagine the hassle for him if I hadn't been paying attention! Given that all of us can sign up for a free high quality personal email address in about 30 seconds and then walk around with a computer in our pocket that gives us access to said email address, there is no excuse not to move all your personal stuff off your work address. Not only will it reduce the amount of email you need to deal with at work, you can then apply all these tips to your personal email!
There is a Light at the End of the Inbox
If you block off time every day and apply these tips consistently, eventually you will find that you are always caught up with all of your email from the last day. Congratulations! Now that you've reached that milestone, use your remaining focused email time to chip away at the unread backlog. The good news is that because that email is probably going to be much older, a lot of it is probably no longer relevant and can be dealt with faster. In our next post, we'll talk about some strategies for quickly dealing with old email. These strategies are also very helpful when you're facing (ok, dreading) a stuffed inbox on your return from PTO.
Thank you for reading. Don't forget to feed the blogger with comments and the Like button. Click "Watch this Page" in the top right-hand corner for future editions, unless of course you choose to Unsubscribe Ruthlessly so don't have to deal with the automatic notifications crowding your inbox, in which case your loss we'll understand.