Not quite Inbox Zero? Tips to help you get there.
Archiving , labelling and deleting old emails is a straight forward process that if ruthlessly applied will get your email inbox close to zero. If you develop the positive habit of doing regular sweeps to process your new emails it’s fairly easy to maintain that near zero state. However getting from the 10 or 5 emails you’ve still got in your inbox to inbox zero is much harder. Normally these last few emails will fall into one of three categories:
A) Emails with content or attachments you’ll need in the near future
These are the emails with the excel file you are going to need tomorrow or on Wednesday. The reason why you are finding it difficult to deal with these emails is that you don’t believe that you’ll be able to find them easily if you archive them. Sure, it probably won’t be that difficult to find, but it’s likely that you’ll waste a couple of minutes looking for tit. The reason for this is that most people send emails with really bad titles that don’t relate to the content of the email or the attachment: emails with titles like ‘Re:meeting’ or ‘Re:bug’… Even if the original title of an email was meaningful – people are lazy when using the reply button and the email you need might be the 8th in a thread of 10 emails whose content has evolved dramatically compared to the original title. Tips for dealing with these types of emails:
- Forward the email with the attachment you need to yourself with a title that better describes the content of the email so that you’ll be able to identify it quickly.
- When forwarding an email to yourself as described above, add a reference to the title for example ‘task3045′. Make a note of this reference in your calendar or to do list and you’ll be able to find the email immediately when you need it – simply by searching using this reference.
- Don’t hesitate to fork discussions by changing the title of emails to something more descriptive when replying to them.
- If you’re a manager train your staff to use better more descriptive email titles – your entire organization will benefit.
B) Emails that need action
These emails tend to linger in your inbox because you are using it as an ad hoc to do list. And the reason why you are doing that is that you don’t trust the task management system you’ve got in place. Your inbox is not your to do list. Deal with these emails by:
- Converting these emails into actionable items on your to do list.
- Dealing with any underlying fundamental issues with your to do list system so that you have increased trust in it.
The second problem with these types of emails is that more often than not you want to reply to them to inform people that the relevant task or problem as been completed or solved. Tips A1 and A2 above will help you here.
C) Emails that need decisions
The third type of emails that will linger in your inbox are emails that require you to make a decision. These are the toughest emails to deal with. Ask yourself these questions:
- What is preventing me from making this decision? Do I need more information to make the decision? Do I simply need to schedule some time to think about this issue? Convert your answers into concrete and scheduled action steps and archive the email.
- Have I already made the decision but am I afraid to commit? You’ve made your decision: act on it and archive the email!
- Is this a decision I cannot afford to make? Are the consequences of making the wrong decision too high? Acknowledge the fact that you are not prepared to make this decision and archive the email.
By identifying these three types of emails: ‘emails with content you need in the near future’, ‘emails that need actions’ and ‘emails that need decisions’ and following the tips above you’ll be able to get and maintain your inbox at zero. Just remember Zen comes with discipline…
Inbox zero is an action based system for emptying your email inbox inspired by gtd. For Merlin Mann’s original series of posts on inbox zero, click here.
