March 6, 2009 by
0 (zero) Inbox
Is having an empty email Inbox a dream for you?
In my opinion it’s not a dream or a goal, it’s a means, a resource. It’s a process of continuous improvement of a better management lifestyle.
Here are two of the positive effects in working to keep a zero Inbox:
- you put in place strategies to delegate more
- you put in place strategies to receive less email that probably means you send less emails, that surely means you communicate in a better way!
What’s your experience?
PierG
Comments:
fabiobeta - Mar 5, 2009
My policy, upon recieving an e-mail is: if I can answer at the moment, I do it, and the e-mail is removed from the inbox if I can’t answer at the moment but I can delegate a step of the e-mail reaction, i forward it to the next person in the chain. And the e-mail is removed from the inbox (the answer will be my next trigger to act on the activity) if I can’t answer right now and I can’t forward the e-mail, it stays there and is added to my todo list. If it’s a mail that doesn’t need an answer from me, I try do develop a filtering rule in gmail, son I never see again that kind of e-mail in my inbox. And I love it :)
Zero inbox is something I’ve been doing for a year now as part of implementing David Allen’s GTD (getting things done) philosophy. I highly recommend his book `Getting Things Done`. It’s a god send and global best seller. I’m much less stressed, more productive and able to react to change as a result!
4 items in my inbox right now. I manage to get down to 0 from time to time, but I have a strict policy of never ever getting over 10. To me, the zero-inbox philosphy is mainly a process of putting information closer to action. For example: - If I can do something now, I do it straight away. - If I’ll only be able to take care of a certain document once I get back home, I’ll leave the printed document on the keyboard of my computer rather than leave a memo in my inbox. - If my partner drops me a mail telling me that we need to double-check our mortgage reports, I’ll ask her if she can just remember me in a few hours once we meet. This requires some common sense to avoid getting into a mirror game of “now it’s your turn to remember me” - but done right, it allows me to focus on whatever I can do *now*, instead of wasting energy worrying about the stuff I cannot act upon just yet. I guess that the point is: I’m better at forgetting stuff than I am at remembering stuff, so I’m trying to do more of what I do best. :)
The key thing for me is that my Inbox is a terrible task list - it’s never usually clear what the “task” or “tasks” associated with an email is without re-reading the mail and thinking about it again - which is a horrible waste of effort & time. And with most emails I get having to read them once is bad enough without having to do it two, three or more times!! My strategy :- 1. Delete it if possible! 2. Can it be done now? .. do it. 3. For reference only? .. file it 4. To delegate or “needs input from someone else” .. forward it and delete or file my copy. Maybe add a follow-up task to my task list to check on it later 5. Needs stuff done? .. add specific required actions to task list and delete or file the email