Time

How I became an email ninja

Living the 80/20 way means be more efficient and effective perfoming tasks. One activity I used to waste a lot of time is email management.

These are the rules I encourage myself to follow in order to not be overwhelmed by emails.

Step 1 : Use Gmail

Gmail is THE service provided by Google you cannot ignored…after research of course. I don’t dislike the other webmails but Gmail features are so complete and make your email management much easier and faster.

I like Gmail for:

• The powerful search engine
• The possibility to fetch emails from external accounts
• Labels and filters
• Conversation threading system
• Hotkeys
• …

Step 2 : Group all my emails into the same inbox

I stopped checking several emails inboxes. It’s a waste of time. To do that Gmail provides a great feature: get email from external accounts. Go in the settings of your Gmail account then in the Account tab. In the Get mail from other accounts part click on Add another mail account. Enter email address, username and password. From now Gmail will check this external account periodically and it will display emails into your normal inbox. There is only one limitation: your external account needs to use POP3 protocol, Hotmail don’t for example…

Thanks to this feature I have centralized all my email in the same place.

Step 3 : Delete, delete and delete again.

The goal is now to keep in my inbox only the bare minimum.

I delete every emails I won’t need later. Example: As a Amazon customer I receive occasionally by email special offers. If I’m not interested by products advertised I delete the email, if I am I check Amazon Web site and delete the email once it’s done because I will probably not need it later.

Keep only emails that contain useful information.

Step 4 : Archive aggressively

I keep in my inbox only immediately vital emails, I archive the rest.

I keep visible emails I need to answer or that contain immediately useful information.

I archive emails that contains useful information I will probably need later. (Ex: A link I want to remember, an address, interesting conversation etc…). When I need it I use the powerful search engine to find it. Don’t forget research is the main job at Google.

Now I have in my inbox only actionable messages (pending answer…) or immediate added-value. My mind is no longer overwhelmed by tons of useless emails.

Step 5 : Subscribe only to indispensable alerts and newsletters.

This step is not about how to manage emails efficiently but about attacking the cause of the problem, reducing the quantity of useless emails I received.

I unsubscribed to almost every newsletters. To do it I follow the following rule:

I ask myself: “Does this newsletter worth the five minutes I spend to read it?” If I hesitate more than 3 seconds I unsubscribe.

I think about it also before subscribe to a new one. Most of the time I think about ten seconds and don’t subscribe eventually.

Moreover most of social network Web sites have alerts feature every time someone add me as a contact or tag me on pictures. I’ve deactivated all these notifications that bring no value. To do it yourself just go in your favorite social networks into settings panel.

Step 6 : Use labels and filters

Labels in Gmail work as tags. I use labels to organize emails and find them faster. I create label for projects or specific topics. The main advantage in comparison with Outlook-like folders system is I can apply several labels to the same message. Thus, I can tag an email “Project A” and “todo” for instance.

Filters are automatic actions achieved according to criteria. I use them to automatically apply a label when I receive emails from specific people or directly archive some emails without displaying it in the inbox.

Step 7 : Batch your email session

I used to be an emailaholic, checking my inbox every five minutes, waiting for important messages. This method is not very efficient.

A much better solution is to check new emails only twice a day. (11am and 5pm for example) and process all my message in one session.

When I process my emails I follow the two minutes rule from David Allen (author of Getting Things Done). Idea is simple : if I can answer within two minutes I do it immediately and archive the message. If I need thinking or research that can exceeded two minutes I keep it in my inbox and label it in order to find it more easily. Then I process next email and get back to the previous one later.

Step 8 : Answer briefly

I try to answer emails in five sentences maximum. That forces myself to be concise and only get to the heart of the matter.

I don’t like five pages emails and prefer when people get down to basic essentials. So I try to do the same writing only short and useful content. I said “try” .

What do so think about my email management method?

Source: Problogger, The 4-Hour Workweek, Getting Things Done and Problogger again

© 2008 Unbalanced man.