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When I’m grilling chicken, I don’t slop some sauce on a wing, go inside and start chopping onions, come back out, hit the leg, go back in and chop a pepper, and then come back out and knockout the thigh. No – it is natural for us to group things. We’ll baste all of the chicken before moving onto the next task, even if that task is the cold one sitting on the side of grill.
Thus I present to you Inbox Zero. Those that work with me have heard me sing its praises before, and I feel this forum is a natural fit. The basic premise is this: Do not become a slave to your email inbox. Period.
This will sound crazy, I know, but you’ll just have to trust me for at least three more paragraphs. What I am about to say will flat out rock your world…
It is possible for you to only check your email three times per day (two if you’re good), while…
- not leaving anybody hanging.
- maintaining an inbox that hits zero messages multiple times per day.
- fostering a more productive daily work experience.
Oh, and I almost forgot…
- all while not watching the sky fall down upon thee.
If you are so priviledged to have access to my calendar, you will see time from 8:30-9:00, 1:00-1:30 and 5:00-5:30 blocked out each day. What am I doing during this time? Checking email? Nope. Passing along forwards? Nope.
I am processing email. In short, we do a few basic things with email. We read and delete. We read and quickly reply. Or, we read and file away to create a task to do later. That’s it. There is nothing more to it than that, but so many of us are literally addicted to our computer inbox and/or crackberry that we ultimately lose hours of productivity each week. And not just physical minutes, but quality mental minutes as well. Jumping back and forth and interrupting complex thought to reply, “Yes, I spoke to Susan yesterday about setting up a time for a QBR next month,” to a colleague does only one thing and one thing well: it diminishes our ability to efficiently produce quality work. That email reply, like all quick replies can wait a few hours. And, like chicken, grouping them together saves bulk time and makes our work time more thoughtful/production. And I don’t know about you, but my schedule surely isn’t getting any slower, so each productive minute I can get my hands on I’ll take.
What about fire drills, you ask? In a year and a half, nobody has ever emailed me when a life or death situation is occurring. And in a year and a half, I’ve never missed a firedrill despite only checking email three times per day. And the best part is, I don’t even take the entire half hour anymore. 15-20 minutes and I’m looking at a clean inbox and an open morning to focus on things that deserve my undivided attention.
I can go on, but I’ve already taken four paragraphs when I said I would take three. So please, if you are intrigued at all, give the expert Merlin Mann a few minutes of your time. Shoot, if it’s good enough for Google, it’s at least worth watching the video.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=973149761529535925&hl=en]
For more information check out The Complete 43 Folder Inbox Zero Series.
First of all, thank you for the invite. Secondly, I had been reading some of your stuff before I was invited and really enjoying it. I love, in this particular piece, the chicken analogy. I was promoted to Manager status in Oct. at work. And, working in an industry and position that doesn’t necessarily require me to have a true understanding/knowledge of the “business” side of things, it’s nice to have a simple analogy to help me bring the point home.
There’s a lot of great resources spread across the web, unfortunately they don’t always come with a lot of context or with examples of how to apply the basic concept across multiple channels. Glad we’re able to help!