Get stuff done
Illustration by Tomba Lobos
The beginning of the year has always been a time to think ahead about what goals you have for the coming year. New Year Resolutions rarely work though. We put a massive amount of pressure on ourselves to achieve overly ambitious goals. The best way to make a change is to build habits – working routinely in small, incremental steps and making progress on our way to a bigger goal.
In the workplace, making progress on ambitious goals is challenging and complex. One of the biggest distractions? Email. It's broken. It's overwhelming. It's a time-suck. We need to reframe how we think about email, from a task to a tool, used to get us closer to our meaningful goals. Meaningful work isn’t a simple task but requires complex actions and several milestones over a period of time. Rethinking the process of how we use our primary communication tool can lead to less stress and anxiety and will let us focus on the work that really matters.
From a new book by Jocelyn Glei, Unsubscribe, her research uncovered that “the average person checks their email 11 times per hour, processes 122 messages a day, and spends 28 percent of their total workweek managing their inbox.” Talking with a few people in my own office, even these numbers underestimate the amount of email some of us are actually receiving!
To achieve your own ambitious goals for the future, here are a few tips to ease your frustration with email and help you get more done this year:
Rethink email as a tool, not a task, that connects you to more meaningful work: mission-based work, or the stuff that leads to you find your calling; project-based work, or the stuff that is required to complete a project; and skills-based work, or the stuff you learn to enhance your skills.
Craft an email routine. Instead of monitoring your email 24/7, understand the rhythms of your body and do your most meaningful work when you have the most energy.
Process your emails in batches. There’s better focus and efficiency in our work when we focus on a single process, rather than switching between various tasks.
Unsubscribe to unnecessary newsletters and notifications. Develop a system of “pulling” information when you need it, instead of letting it get “pushed” onto you. Inbox zero is a myth.
Determine the most effective mode of communication. Ask yourself, is email right for this message, or would it be better to have a phone call, or face-to-face meeting?
Or, remove email altogether. Utilize a project management tools which keep all communication in one place and allow you to openly collaborate with others.
And finally, some quick and tactical steps you can do right now to better manage your email. I love the list of tips below, edited down from an original list by Aaron Dignan, in another book edited by Glei, Manage Your Day-to-Day.
Label your emails for faster retrieval
Set up rules so that your email can sort itself
Archive all of your emails so that you can focus
Color code your email for visual cues to priority
Use a reminder tool so that important email chains resurface
Convert email into tasks so that nothing slips through the cracks
Create email templates so that you can rapidly send common messages
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I’m not an email expert, and don’t intend to preach, but some of these methods have helped me manage email in the past. They are a reminder for me and I hope they’ll help you as well. If you’re feeling a little less anxious now, with some level of hope for getting more shit done.