inbox = zero: can you imagine?

Wonder what it is like to work at Google? Google Tech Talks is a series of presentations by high caliber people Google invites to speak to their employees to help them do their jobs better. They cover a wide variety of topics and most are available on YouTube. A particularly good one from last fall is by Merlin Mann called Inbox Zero that covers strategies to manage high volumes of email. As someone who currently has, and feels the pressure of, 182 emails in her inbox I was intrigued on how to get that down to zero.

Question: Do you have email in your inbox right now that you have read but haven’t done anything about?

Oh, yeah, do I ever. Mann believes people live in their inbox: they collect tasks, it becomes their to-do list, it’s storage for reference materials and even calendar management (vs. putting it into an actual calendar program like Outlook, etc.). It’s the one source for all incoming and outgoing information. As he says:

Email became the lingua franca for how you dealt with your entire life.

Add to that the innate feeling that every email needs a response and you’re entering into a world of pain and inefficiency. Mann reminds us that time and attention are our most valuable resources. I mean, really, how many people talk about focusing on balance and quality of life? Where you put your time and attention says a lot about who you are. Now, take a look at the last two weeks of your electronic, online life. Is that a reflection of your time and attention?

Mann’s advice is to develop a simple, repeatable system that helps you deal with large volumes of email. It’s really just advanced common sense but one we typically forget. He has developed a system for himself based on five verbs, or actions, that he applies to every email:

1. delete or archive - when he says archive he doesn’t mean into a crazy, byzantine amount of folders but to one folder called ‘archive’. With the power of search you don’t need to have a mess of folders anymore.
2. delegate - he does suggest using some type of reminder (like PingMe) to follow up and make sure the delegated item has been dealt with.
3. respond to quickly - requires 2-3 minutes in something like 2-3 sentences. He promotes the ‘five sentence‘ email to reduce emailarrhea.
4. defer - requires a larger response (e.g. extra information may be required). He suggests putting these into a folder called ‘to respond’ so you can whittle them down during the day.
5. do - do it. Now. Process. Put the action in your calendar, add the task to your tasks file (outside email using something like Ta-da or Remember The Milk or in my case I’m addicted to post-it’s), walk the folder over, pick up the phone. Don’t let email sit around without a reason.

He encourages you to figure out your own system, determine your own verbs/actions, but provides his five to give you some guidance. Mann also gives some excellent tips:

• you’ve got to make email management a habit: repeat the process every time you open your email.
• ‘do email less’: he suggests that we not leave our email open all the time so that we have a Pavlovian response everytime we get new mail. Instead he suggests that we look at email once an hour, for ten minutes, process in one of the five actions above and leave.
• cheat: use filters to manage incoming mail to be dumped into another folder that you can read when you want to without pressure; create templates if you find you are responding similarly each time.
• no fiddling: keep moving stuff and get out. Stay focussed on managing action.
• NOT EVERY EMAIL NEEDS A RESPONSE! this one is huge. He makes a clear distinction between responding to an email and processing an email in the five ways mentioned above. This reduces a significant amount of stress.
• never just ‘check your email’. If you are going into email then be prepared to convert email to actions or don’t ‘check’.

Curious about how to attack your email after a holiday? If you get a chance watch Inbox Zero - Mann is really funny and although it says it is 58 minutes long he actually presents for 30 minutes and then does a Q&A. The holiday answer is in the Q&A.

Now, back to those 182 emails … I’ve got some actions to perform!