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The biggest distraction in the workplace is your colleagues, (but you probably don’t mind that..... :)
The second biggest usage of company time is reading and responding to emails. 28% of company time is spent this way, on average.
Why is this a problem?
Wouldn’t you prefer to reduce email time and spend more time doing what really needs to be done?
We want you to get better at work AND create your own sustainability enterprise! We will help you do that by carving out time by being more effective.
I don’t want email to take over your work life. I want you to have a massive impact on sustainability. So, I’m sharing my 10 hacks with you in the hope that you can say ta-ta to a bulging inbox. In fact, you might be able to get your email time down to as little as 1 hour per week if you follow these tips meticulously.
If you think these tips won’t swing well in your organisation…
Start by trialling them for a day or two and see if anyone is affected. If you’re working on your own project and the email side of things is overbearing, you’re perfectly placed to give this a go. However, these tips can become very habitual very quickly, so try one at a time instead of jumping in at the deep end.
A final warning
If you successfully adopt these hacks, tips, or golden nuggets (whatever you’d like to call them), your colleagues may come over to your way of thinking and together you can change the email culture of an entire organisation. Are you ready to be remembered as a hero?
Hack #1 - Don’t open the emails yet!
Until you’ve got your most important or productive task out of the way, don’t even think about opening your email inbox. First, figure out what your most significant or impactful move is, and tackle that. Most of us open up the inbox straight away and begin drowning in messages that might seem important, but don’t really move you towards your objectives. In this scenario, you’re back to square one, down the rabbit hole. How can you make a sustainable change if you're sat there tackling emails?
Light version - Scan your emails to see if there’s anything TRULY urgent. If not, see above.
Hack #2 - Snooze!
Open your inbox and highlight (usually click to ‘mark’) all of the emails that you can deal with either at the end of Friday, next week, or in a couple of weeks time. Drag them into a new folder called ‘End of the week’, ‘End of the month’, or ‘The near future’, for example.
Reminder: Put it in your diary to deal with these at the planned time.
Hack #3 - Batch process, with the help of a clock
Assign just 1 hour per day to emails*.
*4pm to 5pm is the best time because nobody replies after then.
I manage to run my business with a 25 minute email session around 12 noon and then another 25 min session in the evening (for Aussie/NZ clients). I batch process against a 25 min timer. This keeps me focussed and succinct.
If you need more than one hour, try to do it in the afternoon because if you reply to emails in the morning it becomes email tennis from then on. Working to a one hour timer gives you a sense of urgency, meaning you focus on what’s important, are more succinct in your words, and get through your inbox quicker.
You’ll find that the world doesn’t fall apart by replying to emails for just one hour per day. Soon, you’ll be able to squeeze your reply time into 30 minutes. You’ll learn to prioritise what is important and urgent, what is important but not urgent (see tip 3), and what is unimportant (usually more than half).
How to: Take a look at the auto archive feature in Gmail and Outlook.
Hack #4 - Get them on the phone
Could your conversation be had more effectively if you did it over the phone? Most likely, yes. Get on the phone before email tennis can even begin. If there are leads or conversations in your inbox that could be closed forever with one chat, put them in a separate folder.
Hack #5 - Be honest
Tell your colleagues that you’re swamped with emails and it’s stopping you getting the important tasks done. You could also tell them that you’re focused and busy with a certain project and that they won’t have much luck emailing you. Tell your colleagues to their face and in meetings that if they need to talk to you, they will have to find a more efficient manner.
Hack #6 - Out of office
Here’s a template for your ‘out of office’ auto-message…
Title: In the office working flat out on X project.
Message: Dear colleague, thank you for your email. I am working hard on X project. This is part of our organisational objective to do XYZ. As such, I cannot currently respond to your email. If this is urgent please call [mobile]. If it is not urgent, I will deal with your message on Friday PM if it is important. Thank you for your understanding and helping the organisation move towards XYZ.
This is a tricky method to implement, so trial it first, maybe for one day per week, then ask the colleagues who emailed you what they felt about it. If their response is acceptance, you can continue. Colleagues will soon learn about your feelings towards email and will get the hint that they should only bother you with urgent stuff, and preferably over the phone.
Alternatively...
Here’s an auto-reply email Josh Spector from For the Interested Newsletter received from a successful lawyer that’s a perfect example of how you can make your inbox work for you.
Let me apologise — if you don’t get an immediate response.
My phone may be turned off.
I may be walking, and looking up, instead of down.
If you are curious — and this is a workday — feel free to call my office.
I may be in a meeting, or my “device” is on a “time out.”
In any event, I am trying to be less distractible, more deliberative, and more mindful.
I am hoping this will make us all more productive.
If you need me — and this is urgent, or timely — please call my office or my cell.
If this is a weekend, or an evening, and this is NOT urgent, let’s talk during the week.
If this is personal, call me, find me, see me — let’s talk not text.
Let’s try this.
Hack #7 - Ask yourself the question
‘Is responding to non-priority emails helping me use my time in the best way?’.
Tip: Put a post-it note on your screen as a reminder.
Hack #8 - Old is not always gold
The older an email, the lower the priority. If you think you’re going to respond to that email from 3 months ago, well, forget about it. Bulk archive emails older than 1 month and get your inbox looking tidier. Archive is better than delete, so if someone does pop up from months ago, you can see what they want and say something along the lines of ‘Oh, as I haven’t heard from you in months, I assumed it was not critical. Thanks for helping me organise my priorities’.
Hack #9 - Learn to use email filters and folders
Sustainability Entrepreneurs, you will need to learn how to use your time effectively. This simple trick will save you so much time, and it’s as simple as setting up rules for how your email client processes different emails. Use these guides to help.
Learn about filters for outlook
You can set up a filter that looks for the word ‘unsubscribe’, which often will be found in the newsletters you’ve subscribed to. You should also set up a filter to make sure the Sustainability Entrepreneur newsletter doesn’t end up in this folder!
Here are some more ideas:
- Emails where you CC’d get sent to a separate folder
- System notifications get sent to a separate folder.
- Online shopping and purchase notifications can be sent to another folder.
- ‘Out of office’ messages from others can be sent to another folder.
- Social media notifications can go to another folder.
- Set up folders for specific people or teams, so that you can delegate actions to them at a later date.
Don't forget: Scan these folders once per week to keep on top of things!
Hack #10 - Turn off push notifications
If all of the above fail, just turn off your notifications. That’s the most surefire way to avoid the overbearing nature of emails. Those pings, whooshes, and dings are distractions that you often don’t need. If people need immediacy from you, they can call.
What to do next…
Pick one of the methods above, trial it, expand on it, and see what works for you. After reading my 10 hacks I’m sure one or two of them would have stood out to you and made you think ‘Yeah, I can do that!’.
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