Clean up the “inbox.”

I presented a seminar last week at UC Berkeley, and touched on a nerve...that ever-filling e-mail inbox.

As you become faster, and better, it's more important than ever to clear the clutter. In too many cases, the e-mail in box is a storage bin of items old and new, urgent and nice, pressing and overdue.

Multi-minding (forget multi-tasking; have you ever listened to a voice mail and read an e-mail at the same time? Can't be done at 100%…) only serves to distribute your focus. Instead, you want to engage and perform every time you open the inbox.

Here's how:

Change the incoming subject lines of your e-mails. (Easy to do in e-mail programs like Outlook and Lotus Notes.) As you review new items, identify your next action. Naturally, you don't want to repeatedly (ie: every time you scan your in-box) see an e-mail with a subject line that reads:

Re: re: re: FWD: budget meeting

Instead, review the message the first time you see it and change the subject line to something more actionable, such as:

draft initial presentation overview re: budget for Q3

This way, when you do open the inbox, you'll know what items you can / cannot do by simply reviewing the subject lines, instead of re-reading, and closing the same messages over and over again.

When e-mail users use this process of “appropriately identifying the action” each e-mail represents, they usually wind up purging, sorting and organizing much of their inbox into other folders. This cleans the clutter, and makes it easier to perform at higher level of productivity and lower level of stress.

Comments

[Hueina Su]

Jason,

Thanks for this great tip! I know I can certainly use some help cleaning up my own inbox and help my coaching clients do the same.

Thanks also for stopping by my blog and for your kind words.

Warmly,
Hueina

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