Oli Gibson

This post is part of the Empty Inbox series

Operating a successful and sustainable empty inbox is a process rather than a product. Unfortunately a sudden burst of productive work can’t save you from the chaos, consistency is the key to removing the stress from email.

Was the Stress Justified?

As you trawled though those hundreds of messages in you inbox you may have noticed how most email is only relevant for a short period of time and how most is remarkably unimportant and retrospectively unnecessary. So why did it seem so important before?

I believe that the ‘always-on’ mindset makes you spring to attention whenever that new message arrives. You feel the need to answer it there and then because it must be important. However with the use of hindsight how many of those message really needed to be dealt with immediately and how many could have waited?

Keep it Flowing

Think about when you started answering all the messages that just needed a quick response. I expect you found 5-10 minute periods where you were amazingly productive, where you had that single focus on retiring as many messages as you could. I even expect that you enjoyed these moments, sending those one line responses and making use of the delete key. In fact I know you enjoyed them, it feels awesome.

In my experience most people learn the following things from this series:

• You’ve been stressing about nothing when it comes to email
• Processing and quick responses are key
• You can always win the game if you play by your rules

Try to learn from all I have said here and think about how you would adjust your behavior accordingly. Changing the way you deal with email to be more productive cannot happen over night but over time you will be able to apply all I have said. For now though just congratulate yourself on identifying the problem and finding out how you can go about solving it.

This post is part of the Empty Inbox series.

No matter what the state of your inbox it can be taken from full to empty with relative ease in less than five minutes. Obviously to do this you don’t respond to each and everyone of those emails. The only way to really empty your inbox that quickly is to over use the delete key or ruthlessly process all those unread messages.

The most common reason for email accumulating is you simply don’t have time to respond to it all. Many people also fear losing track of email they haven’t responded to, just incase they miss something vital. If your one of these people it’s time for a reality check, you cannot ever possibly catch up simply because you receive an ever increasing number of messages everyday that only adds to the backlog.

Clearly this is a Catch-22 situation. You cannot possibly hope to operate an empty inbox if you play by the rules so I suggest, like many great entrepreneurs, you change the rules to suit you…

Don’t answer all your email, in fact don’t even answer most of them.

So lets look at how to attack your inbox with 500 unread messages in it. With this large a backlog it’s important to process fast and not worry about possible ‘mistakes’. To start delete the obvious spam, chain letters and other rubbish that unnecessarily fills your inbox. Next, archive the mailing lists and blog comments. While your filtering all this identify, flag and relocate all the really important stuff into a ‘pending’ folder. The main focus right now is to have an empty inbox.

When and only when you reach zero can you open the ‘pending’ folder and concentrate on writing one line responses and generating to-do’s until you’ve cleared the backlog.

If you really have got 500 unread messages in your inbox your not going to get to zero in five minutes but once you are there you see that it was time well spent. Answering email is annoying, time-consuming and mentally draining but trust me as you see that number of unread messages falling you’ll find all the energy you need to finish the task.

Mental filtering is not exclusively my idea, it’s based on the concepts of Merlin Mann which in-turn were based heavily on David Allen’s Getting Things Done book. Essentially mental filtering is based on using a few questions to filter the messages in your inbox:

1. How does this message affect me?
2. What does this message require of me?
3. What is the best way to achieve whatever is required?

Admittedly most 11 year olds could have come up with that, but then again have you applied those mental filters to any of the messages in your inbox before? Thought not.

In my experience more than half my email won’t make it past the first question and I can just delete it. Most of the rest won’t get past question two and normally warrants a one-two line reply. The left over messages are then dealt with by question three. The key is to get as quick as possible at pulling out actions from emails and getting on with them.

At the end of the day you control email, rather than email controlling you. These questions are based around the best use of your interest, time and attention and making your email work for you rather than the other way around.

This post is part of the Empty Inbox series

I’ve already mentioned scheduling email in one of the previous posts in the Empty Inbox series but I believe it’s so important to achieving an empty inbox it deserves it’s own exclusive section.

You may have already heard me talk about the dangers of email autocheck and how it is probably the single biggest distraction in peoples modern working lives. But for the people who still have their email app set to autocheck every minute or so to make sure they don’t miss that vital email that could save the company I’m going to tell you all about it again.

Autocheck generates a crazy amount of mostly pointless interruptions that distract you from the task in hand. How often have you caught yourself thinking ‘oh, I might as well just answer this quickly, then get back to work’. Inevitably quickly rarely enters the equation and often before you’ve managed to send that first response off a brand new time drain of a message has landed in your inbox. Also while we’re on the subject that little beep to warn you of a new message arriving is probably very welcome when you’ve been procrastinating over a task all afternoon. Be honest.

The always on approach to email has become the norm for many of us, especially the Blackberry generation. I have a friend who’s blackberry beeps without fail every minute or so, not just with email but with other sensory overloads like social network updates. I can’t help but pity him and the effect it has on his life. Email is only a beneficial service when you make it work for you. As soon as it doesn’t you may as well rid yourself of the hassle and find another way to communicate. Remember you control your email, your email does not control you.

From what I can see leaving your mail program on autocheck does not only divert your attention. It also affects the quality of your responses and the way you deal with email. In many cases your more interested in actually receiving email rather than actually doing anything useful with it. It’s easy to sort all these issues out but it all stems from your own honesty and a little distinction.

The Ideal Email Schedule

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. Thats it, simple. You don’t touch email other than at those times. Email is off. Close. Quit. Get on with your life and do other things. Being able to switch to this schedule easily really does depend on how much email has taken over you life. If your a heavy user you may need to take the not so ideal approach first to ween yourself off checking email every two minutes. It’s like getting over any addiction…

The Not Quite as Ideal Email Schedule

While I’ve called this schedule ‘not ideal’ that doesn’t make it any less relevant. Think of it as the first division, you need to get through it before you can be promoted to the premiership. For this to work you need to need to attempt to give email the least focus you can possibly tolerate and then experiment with a schedule along these lines.

1. Check for new email and make quick responses: 2 mins every 20 mins
2. Non-critical responses: 10 mins every 90 mins
3. Processing ‘everything else’: 2 mins every hour and 15 mins at the end of the day.

Again other than that email is off. You can do other stuff right? At the end of the day it’s up to you. Your the one who decides how often you do this but you must decide.

Advantages to Scheduled Email

• It removes the continual notification which allows for you to do non-email work without interruption or distraction.
• Gives you time to assess your true priorities.
• A regular schedule helps divide your time and prevents time drain.

As all cures for addiction say ‘will power is necessary’. I can only advise you as to how to schedule your email. It is down to you to stick to that schedule. As with all addicts at times it won’t be easy but if you get through the first week or so you will be rewarded with a much more manageable inbox.

Many believe that deleting email is some how sinful, shows your slack attitude or is simply counter-intuative to the idea of mastering your inbox. But lets be honest we all receive so many drains on our time these days that treating every new email in your inbox as a sign of love that must be reciprocated is like writing your own mental death certificate. It might have been possible to stay sane with that attitude in 1993 but today it will defiantly result in you bouncing off the heavily padded ceiling.

The aim of this series is to help you manage an empty inbox. Without appropriate use of the delete key it’s very unlikely you’ll ever achieve that. As soon as you see a new email in your inbox you need to very quickly decide wether that message can be deleted or archived. This is probably the key secret to achieving an empty inbox because once you reduce the amount of rubbish you’ll start to see the gems. Delete junk, delete junk masquerading as precious gems and delete everything you’ll never respond to. What your left with is the gems that help you achieve.

Deleting is tough. It’s the hard option, leaving a message unread and un-actioned in your inbox is so much easier than accepting it will stay unread and un-actioned and you might as well just get rid of it now. You have to be honest with yourself as soon as you see a new message. Is there an action here? Will I respond to this? are questions you need to ask straight off and if you answer no for both get rid of it, and fast. Oh and while I’m on the subject don’t, for whatever reason, create some ‘holding’ folder. This won’t solve anything and it certainly won’t make those two questions easier to answer later on.

Those emails that you read and read desperately trying to find a way to deal with cause so much mental debt. I was in this situation and it left me feeling like a useless slacker. I wouldn’t be surprised if it would make you feel the same so seriously if your not going to do anything with the message just get rid. Remember if it was something you really wanted to and could respond to you would have done as soon as you read it.

The only way to have an empty inbox is to make use of the delete key!