After a full night of trick or treating, Lightening McQueen, Dora, and the little Lion were deep into their sugar comas…the trick-or-treaters were done…the plastic pumpkins in the kitchen window were giving off an eerie, yet almost romantic glow…the house was quiet, and it was just me and my husband in the kitchen. He catches my eye. We stare at each other.
He says: “Babe…?”
“Hmmm?” I reply, my mouth full of chocolate.
“I’ve been thinking a lot…”
I wonder what it is… Does he want another baby? Is he ready to buy a minivan? Did I forget to switch the laundry again? Is he going to suggest throwing away the Halloween candy? (girls can do this – think of 15 things in the .005 seconds when you take a breath)
“…about how you could be more productive.”
Oh.
So here’s the thing. This is actually good, because my husband LOVES this stuff, and is a guru genius when it comes to focusing on things, and I’m totally in awe of his ability to do this. I love productivity in theory, but I admit I’m not so good at it. I mean, I get a LOT done, but I could definitely better manage my time.
He is convinced (and is probably right) that I get sucked into the email vortex way too often, which distracts me from accomplishing the important tasks on my to-do list.
So, he then explained this system to me, based on the Getting Things Done (GTD) principles.
4 folders? Oh.
“I’ll help you.”
Now?
“Yes. If you want. Let’s go check your email.“
Sweet.
So, here is what I’m trying out today:
4 primary folders.
- Is it trash? (If yes, delete)
- Can I do it in 2 minutes or less? (If yes, do it and delete or archive)
- Is it Follow up / hold / or archive? (If yes, put it in one of those folders)
- Is it a priority task, as opposed to just a “regular” email that needs following up? (If yes, write it down)
- Accomplish 1 thing on my to-do list (like…write this week’s article and send my ezine…)
- Triage my email
- Do the other important tasks on my list
- Go through the follow up folder
- Repeat steps 2-4 until my work day is over
- Shut off / turn off email. Also, we disabled all the alerts, pop-ups and dings for when a new email arrives (yeah…that makes sense. Cool.)
- Minimize unused programs (Yeup, yeup…I’m trackin’)
- Put phone on silent (Er, okay…)
- Put Skype on Do-Not-Disturb while I’m working (But…how will I talk to my friends?)
- Shut off Twitter and Facebook (You CAN’T be serious.)
So, by now, I’m wary. And tired. And wondering if there are any twix left.
And then, he wrote me this love note:
Ah, how sweet is that?
READ “PRODUCTIVITY TAKES PRACTICE PART II: What to put in your email folders.
Laurie, First I need to say you are a very good writer. Then I need to say thanks for the laugh. Then I need to say to Sable thanks for so lovingly sharing this wonderful and valuable information with you wife. And back to you Laurie, thanks for receiving his information with such a open heart.
The combination of both of your great attitudes (some people could have gotten snippy in their giving and receiving of the very same information with their significate other) created the opportunity for me to learn how to better manage my email. AndI truly appreciate both the email sorting-time management lesson as well as a reminder that each of us (who are with a genuinely good person) always has the choice of hearing the other person as a help or a hindrance in our life.
Thank you, Christine, for your comments! You gotta know what your strengths are, and it helps to know the strengths of the people close to you (in business, and in your personal life, right?)
Once again, brilliant and helpful info from the Queen of Productivity! (At least that’s what I call you. I didn’t even know you had room for improvement!) LOVE the 4 folders of email idea! I’m going to implement that immediately…if not sooner…unless I’m busy. Wonderful info and a very witty, breezy style. Great job!
lol you are hilarious. When we no longer have room for improvement, it usually means we are dead. Thanks for your comment!
So what are you putting in the Follow Up, Hold & Archive folders? Where do articles go that you want to read later, but don’t have time to read right now?
I need a better email triage system – yours has inspired me!
Christine – what a great question! Your comment has inspired *me* to write a follow up blog post. The basic idea is that anything that needs an action goes in the follow up folder, anything that you need to reference in the near future, but not necessarily “do” goes in the hold folder (that one is tricky for me), and anything that you are done with, but don’t want to throw away, goes in the archive folder (like – account numbers, receipts, record of communication, etc.). I’ll expand on this more in another post in the next day or two.
Here ya go – a more detailed explanation is here:
https://www.yourgotogirls.com/2011/productivity-takes-practice-part-ii/
I REALLY would like to implement this 4 folder system, but how do i start when i have 7,000 emails to go through? It’s overwhelming, so I get paralyzed and do nothing. I usually delete immediately those emails that I know i don’t want to deal with, but if there’s even the slightest doubt, then i don’t. But many times, they don’t need a follow up, they simply should be read for educational or motivational purposes. Any advice? Thank you1
7000 emails – Oh boy! Not sure that I can answer this all in a blog comment, but to start – I would say to move all those emails to a folder called “sort later” and then immediately implement the 4-folder system. That gets you started.
Second, I would personally go and delete or archive all the emails that are older than 2 weeks. If you haven’t responded by now, and they haven’t picked up the phone and called you about it, it wasn’t that important. 🙂 If that’s too harsh, delete all the ones older than 1 month.
Going forward, if you get something you want to read later for education or informational purposes, put it in the “hold” folder, and then schedule a “reading hour” once a week into your calendar (or a few times a week, depending how much research and learning time you want to allot). But really – in those 7000 emails, if it wasn’t important enough for you to remember to go back and read it within the week (so you haven’t read it yet), or you didn’t read it on the spot and take some action around it, then let it go. There are SO many amazing people out here in the business world, and I guarantee that they will be sending you more email with more awesome stuff. AND, if you remember that you need some bit of information that is tucked away in those 7000 emails, which are you going to do – search the emails, or just google and find the answer? Me? I’d Google.
If you absolutely feel that you need to process all those emails, do what I said up top (put them in a “sort later” folder, and then allow yourself NO MORE than 15-30 minutes a day, and just process the emails. One day you will get to the bottom. But really…I’d just let them go.
The hard part is making a decision around the emails once they get to the inbox. I know! I’ve been doing this process since I posted about it, and sometimes, yes, I find myself trying to decide what to do with one email or another and I can’t make a decision. I don’t know why we get so attached to our emails (new show idea for TLC: email horders). lol
Good luck and keep me posted with your progress!!