Empty Inbox: Six Sneaky Email Cheats

This post is part of the Empty Inbox series

There is no easy way to rid yourself of email over night, but these six cheats come as close as possible.

The Template

If your email is anything like mine around 80% of it involves sending the same basic few responses over and over. This was probably my biggest email time drain, until I started to use this sneaky little trick.

Templates make it so easy to start a new email or a response based on an existing boiler plate document. I use Mailtemplate for Apple Mail and Entourage but you can also use drafts feature of all mail programs.

Templates are the ultimate go to for:

• Basic ‘thank you’ response
• Responses to frequently asked questions
• Responses to any other regular requests.

It’s nice to be polite and respond to people and even better when it’s a one click automated response.

The Auto-Responder

Reducing the amount of times you check your email each day can make you so much more productive. Thats obvious really. Set two times during the day to check your email, I use 12 noon, or just before lunch and again at 4pm. These times ensure you will have the most responses from the previously sent emails.

Before you can implement the twice daily routine for email you need to create an auto-responer to train all the people who contact you to do so in a more effective way. If this idea scares the hell out of you, especially if it’s your work email speak with your boss first and propose you trial this method for 3 days to see how it works out. Remember to point out that it’s very rare you would receive an email that needed instant attention and you are going to put an alternative way to contact you in an emergency on your auto-responder. Here’s an example of what your auto-response could look like.

Due to high workload, I am only checking and responding to email twice a day at 12pm GMT and 4pm GMT. If what you require is urgent and cannot wait until eith of those times you can contact me on 07797979787.

Thanks for your understanding for this move to be more efficient, It helps me be more productive and serve you better.

Sincerely,
Oli Gibson

Make the move and make your email checking more structured, you would be surprised how understanding most people are and how much of a difference it will make to you.

The ‘I Don’t Know’

Human nature seems to prevent people from being able to admit they don’t know the answer to something. As far as email’s concerned please just say you don’t know and defiantly don’t do the opposite – spending hours trying to seem smart.

Not knowing an answer to a question is fine and telling the sender gives them all the information needed to keep looking. “I don’t know, but here’s the links to a few people who might” can still win you all the praise you could want.

The Question

Ok so this isn’t the best way to deal with email, but it is effective, especially for that email thats been sitting in your inbox for a while. To get the ball in motion i just ask this simple question to the sender.

“Do you still need this?” Trust me this will be a question that saves you hours.

The Link

One of my pet email hates is when I get a question that could be easily be answered with a five second google search. In combination with a template wrapper a response like, “Here’s a link that might help you out…” is quick and easy. It also helps to educate the sender, hopefully subtly suggesting they should hit google next time rather than filling your inbox

The Delete Key

You know those emails that have been sitting in your inbox for weeks? Yeah thats right the ones growing mothballs. Are you ever going to respond to them? If its more than a week old, either answer it or hit delete NOW.

This may sound counter intuitive or feel ‘mean’ but then think why is it you’re still starring at that message rather than responding to it. How, in your mind, will this email become easier to answer? If you can’t work it out you need to move on to the point below.

Delete it, move on and never look back!

The Empty Inbox Series: Introduction

Email seems to be the biggest time drain faced by many busy people today. It seems to be such an issue that many great minds have already thrown their hats into the ring over and shared their secrets for dealing with the vast quantities of email many of us receive. Like many of you probably have I read these articles with much interest, I was desperate to reduce the amount of time email stole from my day but it seemed that none of the approaches or techniques I read about actually carried through to my day to day life. So I have decided to do what anyone who is frustrated with a situation should do. I am going to fix the problem and I am going to tell you how to do the same. It’s time I threw my hat in the ring.

We all agree that the seemingly never ending battle to keep the inbox empty is taking it’s toll, not just on our overall productivity but also simply taking hours from our life’s that we can never recover. However with a proper system in place to process our messages and convert them into actions we can reduce the amount of time email takes up in our day by up to 99%. I’m not kidding.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be sharing with you my system for email mastery and a few tips and tricks I have learnt along the way. There is no guarantee that it will work perfectly for you as we all have our different needs and challenges to face but I promise you that with a little creative adjustment you can apply anything that has worked for me to your own email woes.

I hope that this series can become your go to for ideas to deal with email and become more productive as a result. Actually, scratch that. I hope that this series can help you combat your email and improve your life!

All the Empty Inbox posts will appear here but you can also bookmark the Empty Inbox page for easier access to the series and any new posts.

The Worlds Four Different Thinkers and How to Become The Ultimate Persuader

The way others think has always been of huge interest to me. Understanding the way other peoples brains work and what they may be thinking has always appeared to be the key to success in my eyes and now I think it time to start to share this knowledge with you.

As always when searching for answers they come from the places you least expect. In this case I was speaking with my life coach about ways in which to persuade others to come to my own point of view and she brought up the theory of persuasion. She said that no matter how persuasive or convincing an argument I felt I was making it may be totally unconvincing to someone who thinks differently to me.

This theory is pretty simple but it stood out to me straight away. I had never thought of this before (which makes me think I cannot be the only one) and started to question her on the theory. She told me there were four different types of thinkers and I have explained how they differ below.

Visual - Visual thinkers think in images. they find it easiest to draw out their thoughts in pictures or diagrams and respond best to visual stimulus.

Audible – Audible thinkers, as expected, think in sound. They often talk through situations in their heads and respond best to audible explanations or arguments.

Logical – I am a logical thinker so this is probably the thought process I am most qualified to speak about. Logical thinkers weigh up the pros and cons of any situation in their heads and generally come to the most rational outcome. They rarely rush into decisions and generally give balanced arguments based on facts.

Emotional – Probably the most unpredictable of the thought processes, emotional thinkers are guided by their feelings rather than the facts of a situation. They are more inclined to make rash decisions but that doesn’t mean these decisions won’t be right. Emotional thinkers can also often make decisions very quickly because they’re initial feelings usual rule their thoughts.

So Why Is Any Of This Important?

By working out what sort of thinker someone else is and adapting your approach to suit them you can either explain, argue or just simply interact with that person more successfully. This may not seem that powerful but think back to the last time you failed to pursued someone to come around to your way of thinking, maybe you just weren’t arguing in a way that made sense to them.

Take that idea to the next level. Imagine trying to persuade your boss that your new idea deserves to be given a go or that someone should buy your car. These are times when you may need to use every tool in your arsenal to get the other person to think the same as you and to achieve that you may have to do just the opposite and think like them.

How To Apply the Theory of Persuasion

The most important and probably the most obvious thing to remember is this isn’t full proof, not expect to be able to work out how everyone you meet thinks but in my experience I find I get it pretty right 70-80% of the time. (I’ve had practice) It is also worth noting that people don’t necessarily think in only one way often they mix a couple of the different types.

That said don’t let that thought stop you trying to use this theory to your upmost advantage. You need to start in the obvious place and try to work out how they think. Obviously if you have know the person for a while it is a lot easier but if not asking selective questions can really open the doors and give you full access to their mind.

For example a question as simple as “what did you think off …………?” can reveal much about people thinking. An emotionally driven person will almost certainly answer this question instantly and use ‘extreme’ language to describe their opinions. (they very rarely think something is ‘OK’ it is either amazing or horrible not in the middle) In contrast a logical thinker will likely pause as they consider their answer and are much more likely to fall somewhere between good and bad.

Spotting the visual and audible thinkers may be even easier, the way they dress can be a give away (visuals are generally better dressed) but not as much as the way they present their ideas. A visual thinker will often reach for a pen and paper to help show their thoughts diagrammatically. Its this body language you need to tune into to spot how people think best and remember its the small things that are the giveaways.

Now you think you know how the other person thinks it is simply a case of adjusting the way you interact with them to maximise their understanding of you. If I talk to a visual thinker I try to draw things or write stuff down. If they think emotionally I try to throw my logical ideas out the window for a moment and pitch them a feeling. This all takes practice and you’ll generally find it easiest to interact with people who think the same as yourself but eventually you will find adapting your thinking easier and easier.

Money Laundering for Dummies

*Money laundering is illegal in almost every country in the world. I do not condone the act of laundering money or the activities that result in money needing to be laundered. The knowledge I have brought together here is from wide reading on the subject and I is meant to be consumed for pure interest in the subject. That said it is an interesting!*

Have you ever seen a business that never seems to have any customers and doesn’t seem to be making any money but is still there month on month? I have seen many but one stands out to me. Let me tell you about the lemonade stand in Hungery.

I visited Hungery in September 2008 to race at the Olympic Hopes International Kayak Championships. The hotel the team was staying in was on the outskirts of the town of Szeged and just of the motorway. As you can imagine it wasn’t the most picturesque place in the world and the weather for September was cold with rain clouds threatening most days. From my window I could see the main road and was amused to see everyday the lemonade stall that opened for business there. Every morning when I woke it’s owners were setting up for the day and every evening I saw them leave but never once did I see a customer.

I never did find out much about that lemonade stand that interested me so much but one thing I did discover from talking to some people around the hotel was that the stall consistently took around $500 a day and was open all year round. How can a lemonade stall next to a motorway take $500 a day when it has no customers you ask? My answer, it must be a location for money laundering.

What is Money Laundering?

Lets go back to the beginning. Money laundering is the act of taking dirty money (generally from criminal activity) and ‘cleaning it’ to make it appear like it came from a legitimate source so that the authorities cannot seize the money. Money laundering is the achilles heal for organised crime. Finding a way to get their ill-gotten gains into banks without detection is probably the hardest part of the process for a number of reasons. Banks have to report any large cash deposits of to the serious crime organisation and because most organised criminals deal solely in cash because it is untraceable it becomes almost impossible to get the money into a bank with out someone noticing. It is important to remember that we are not talking about small amounts of cash that could be spent without passing through a bank. Try buying anything worth over £1000 with cash and you will almost certainly set alarm bells ringing in the serious organised crime agency these days as it is assumed you would pay by credit card.

Money laundering is infinitely complex and the rules of the game are always changing but let me explain the basic principle of money laudering.

Placement – The launderer inserts the dirty money into a legitimate financial institution. This is often in the form of cash deposits. The deposits must be kept relatively small, no more than $10,000 otherwise they will almost certainly be reported.

Layering – Layering involves sending the money through various financial transactions to change its form and make it difficult to follow. Layering may consist of several bank-to-bank transfers, wire transfers between different accounts in different names in different countries, making deposits and withdrawals to continually vary the amount of money in the accounts, changing the money’s currency, and purchasing high-value items (boats, houses, cars etc) to change the form of the money. This is the most complex step in any laundering scheme, and it’s all about making the original dirty money as hard to trace as possible.

Integration – At the integration stage, the money re-enters the mainstream economy in legitimate-looking form — it appears to come from a legal transaction. At this point, the criminal can use the money without getting caught.

There are many ways to actually launder money using the above structure, here are a few that are known to the authorities. There are probably many more that are simply not known about yet.

Smurfing

Smurfing or structuring deposits is probably the most simple way to launder money it entails breaking up large amounts of money into smaller, less-suspicious amounts. Generally these amounts must be smaller than $10,000 otherwise they are reported. The money is then deposited into one or more bank accounts either by multiple people (smurfs) or by a single person over an extended period of time.

Shell Companies

These are fake companies that exist for no other reason than to launder money. They take in dirty money as “payment” for supposed goods or services but actually provide no goods or services; they simply create the appearance of legitimate transactions through fake invoices and balance sheets. My example of the lemonade stand would be considered a shell company though it did have a public face to make it look more legitimate.

Off Shore Banking

Money launderers often send money through various “offshore accounts” in countries that have bank secrecy laws, meaning that for all intents and purposes, these countries allow anonymous banking. A complex scheme can involve hundreds of bank transfers to and from offshore banks. Examples of these countries include Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Bahamas.

Legitimate Business Investment

Launderers sometimes place dirty money in otherwise legitimate businesses to clean it. They may use large businesses like brokerage firms or casinos that deal in so much money it’s easy for the dirty stuff to blend in, or they may use small, cash-intensive businesses like bars, strip clubs or check-cashing stores. These businesses may be “front companies” that actually do provide a good or service but whose real purpose is to clean the launderer’s money. This method typically works in one of two ways: The launderer can combine his dirty money with the company’s clean revenues — in this case, the company reports higher revenues from its legitimate business than it’s really earning; or the launderer can simply hide his dirty money in the company’s legitimate bank accounts in the hopes that authorities won’t compare the bank balance to the company’s financial statements.

It’s worth noting as well that most schemes involve using a number of these methods to properly cover the tracks and the real source of the money.

So there you have it the dummies guide to money laundering, I hope it was interesting and informative. If you’d like to see what the authorities are doing to combat money laundering click here or for some money laundering case studies click here.

The Goal Setting Guide: The Case Study

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.” – Abraham Lincoln

Through the last few posts here I have talked about goal setting and my tips to create better goals or achieve your dreams. By reading the posts I have already written (below) you will have the tools you’ll need to set goals that really work, so now I think it is time to show you what can be achieved by using these techniques and why you should use them.

Past Posts in the Series

• An Introduction and Thinking Smart
• Five Tricks to Achieve Goal Setting Nirvana
• Dreamlining

How Tim Ferriss Achieved it All

Tim Ferriss is a remarkable character who has achieved a remarkable amount in his 29 years. Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Reporter even went as far to say “Tim Ferriss has packed more into his 29 years than Steve Jobs has in his 51″. Thats clearly no mean feat! Here’s some of the things Tim has achieved.

• Guest Lecturer at Princetown University
• First American in history to hold a world record in Tango
• Speaker of 6 languages
• National Chinese Kickboxing champion
• MTV break dancer
• Actor in Chinese hit TV series (Human Cargo)

To go with this Tim has also traveled the world extensively, run a successful business (BrainQuicken) in the US and is now an established angel investor.

So how do you pack all this into 30 years and more to the point how do you keep focused enough to achieve all this?

Well Tim has used all the techniques I have detailed in the last few posts but he is a particular fan of dreamlining. He believes the more unrealistic the goals you set the more likely it is you will push to try and achieve it.

Admittedly not everyone wants to be like Tim but he is probably the best example for me to show what can be achieved with proper goal setting. Setting goals is a technique that needs to be learned in itself and once mastered it is amazing what can be achieved, look at Tim!

This now concludes The Goal Setting Guide. I will hopefully add to it from time to time but I now feel that there is a great guide out there to help you set goals that really make the most of your potential. While this is the end of this short series, it doesn’t have to be the end of my advise on goal setting. You can always email me with any questions you have – oli@oligibson.com – or you can find me on twitter – @oligibson.