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The First Golden Rule of Speedmailing
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Cherry-picking emails…
It’s common to scan your email by subject or sender and deal with the one that piques your curiosity first. This can be because it is a very important email, addresses an urgent issue or is simply one you would like to read.
Unfortunately, cherry-picking is inefficient. It promotes a habit of scanning all emails multiple times and will unwittingly lure you into multitasking (task switching).
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Empty your Inbox one-by-one
The better alternative is to literally treat your inbox as a conveyor belt and deal with each email one by one. The power behind the one-by-one rule is that it stops you from re-reading and reprioritizing emails multiple times. As a result, it gets the brain into a good flow of fast decision making.
- Always start at the top. This will ensure you are addressing the most recent email of a thread or discussion, often making reading other emails in that thread unnecessary.
- No putting back of emails into your inbox. This ensures that your inbox will contain only new emails that you have not yet processed. Once you have opened a message, you immediately decide what to do with it. Use the “Emptying your inbox†guide on your Tipbar if needed. An empty inbox helps prevent distraction so you can focus on what needs to get done.
Try to do this only twice a day: once in the morning and once after lunch. This may not always be sufficient, but it is a good aspiration and will increase your productivity by preventing you from checking your email twice every minute!
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Useful tip? If you know someone who can benefit from this tip (co-worker, friend, spouse or former colleague), feel free to share it with them by forwarding [Ctrl+F] this e-mail. If you have any questions or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you.
Wishing you an in-control day,
Email Handyman
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