About 10 years ago, I was an organizational mess. My desk was piled high with papers everywhere (and of course I knew where everything was, but no one else did) and, horror of horrors, my email inbox had over 1000 items in it.
Ever since those dark days I resolved to forever stay organized. Today I brag about the fact that my desk never has a single sheet of paper on it, not even a post-it note. And, miracle of miracles, my email inbox is completely empty at least once a day.
So, after ten years of hoarding the deep, inner secrets of the priesthood, I will break the sacred oath of the SOBs (Society of the Organized Brothers) and give you the secret to the holy grail of organizational relief: the empty email inbox.
It's actually pretty simple and here's all you need to do:
1. Go through your inbox in reverse chronological order (review the most recent email first). There's a few reasons why you do this: a) Sometimes people send multiple emails on a given subject and only the most recent really matters, which means that you can delete the rest, and b) If you haven't been able to get to your email for a few days, at least the most recent senders will think you're replying very quickly.
2. Pick a time of day where you will resolve to process your email inbox. For me, the first thing in the morning is best because I know that once I'm done, I will be free to work on all my other tasks.
3. For each and every email (and make sure you go through EACH and EVERY email), you must do one of 3 actions: (a) Delete it, (b) Reply to it and then file it, or finally (c) File it and/or make it a task to perform later. The biggest cause of overflowing inboxes is that people use some emails in their inbox to act as a "todo" list. Don't let that happen. The Outlook Task folder does a much better job of tracking todos and the video shows you how easy it is to turn emails into tasks by via drag and drop.
4. Go through your Outlook tasks and make sure they are in prioritized order. The video shows you how you can easily move your tasks around.
5. Throughout the day, execute your prioritized tasks. If you have extra time, you can go through your email inbox too, and make sure you follow rule #2 above.
6. Don't be overly concerned about responding to new emails during the day. If you have the time, fine, because otherwise you will reply to all the relevant ones by the next morning which is typically an acceptable response time. However your actual job may be different so make sure you don't start breaking company policy and then tell your boss that I said it was OK.
I've successfully used this technique for over ten years and it has worked when my email volume was well over 100 "real" emails per day. The toughest steps are 2, 3, and 4. If you can make a point of doing those each day, you will just LOVE the feeling of an empty inbox and a prioritized task list. Try it and let me know what you think!
Check it out!
Peter Kay
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