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How is This Relevant to Me ? Inbox Zero . . Day 1
by Andrew McCaskey
Day one of the big experiment – to see if I can acheive the 43Folders ideal – Inbox Zero. As in getting and keeping my work email inbox empty.
With a week of travel earlier this month, several hundred emails were waiting in ambush. The majority of them not new, but items that I had for some reason opened, read and not trashed or filed into folders.
My aspirational level is not great enough to clean folders- I figured that with the Lookout Outlook plug-in that is free from Microsoft and the Copernic Desktop search that I had that under control. About a year ago, I had renamed a number of files from US_Customers to _US_Customers and !@WaitingFor to drive those folder to the top of the list for easy filing.
What was lacking was the fundamental skill – the time sucking life draining re-examination of what each message says and why I should not allow it to take my time. Again.
I found reason #1 – I get emails from some very confused people. In that they have me confused with someone else. Or at least confused with someone who cares about their email.
Bill Jenson’s excellent book “Simplicity:The New Competitive Advantage” lays out the basic rules for a good email in five lines. By his measure, a killer email will answer these questions on first reading.
1. How is this relevant to me ?
2. Specifically, what do you want me to do ?
3. What do success and failure look like and how will I be measured ?
4. What tools and support do I have to work with ?
5. What’s in it for me ?
About two hours later, I could not find one email that contained each of those elements.
In fact, a lot of emails failed the first question. It eliminated about one third of the inbox contents.
It looks like the second pass, tomorrow: “Specificially, what so you want me to do” is going to be the most productive filter of the week. I expect that tomorrow will be a productive day progressing towards Inbox Zero.
One of the guideposts along the way will be some articles from the excellent site for personal productivity at 43 Folders , specifically an article entitled “My email diet” in the Inbox Zero – Day 1series.
From the 43Folders Inbox Zero process, I’m learning that these tools are no substitute for ruthless triage of escalating questions:
1. What does this message mean to me and why do I care ?
2. What action, if any, does this message require of me ?
3. What’s the most elegant way to close out this message and the nested action it contains ?
I’ve been assured that fifty percent of my inbox won’t make it through the first question, and that many will not make it past question two.
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