Zero items is the goal, but anything less than five is reasonable. To make sure that the bloat doesn’t simply transfer from your inbox to your “take action” folder, you must clean out the action items every day. If you do this well, then your inbox becomes a to‑do list of only the complex issues, things that require deeper thought (label these emails “take action,” or in Gmail mark them as starred), with a few “to read” items that you can take care of later. Otherwise you are dooming yourself to rereading it, which is 100 percent wasted time. If you read the note and know what needs doing, do it right away. Remember the old OHIO acronym: Only Hold It Once. Choose among these options right away, with a strong bias toward the first two. When you open a new message, you have a few options: Read enough of it to realize that you don’t need to read it, read it and act right away, read it and act later, or read it later (worth reading but not urgent and too long to read at the moment). Same with any time you spend rereading a message that you have already read (and failed to act upon). How much time do you spend looking at your inbox, just trying to decide which email to answer next? How much time do you spend opening and reading emails that you have already read? Any time you spend thinking about which items in your inbox you should attack next is a waste of time.
#Best way to manage email overload for ceos full#
Think about the late novelist Elmore Leonard’s response to a question about his success as a writer: “I leave out the parts that people skip.” Most emails are full of stuff that people can skip.ģ. You have to write a draft then go through it and eliminate any words that aren’t necessary. Doing this well requires more time, not less. If you are describing a problem, define it clearly. When writing an email, every word matters, and useless prose doesn’t.
In our case it’s usually “got it and proceed.” Which is better than what a non-response means from most people: “I’m overwhelmed and don’t know when or if I’ll get to your note, so if you needed my feedback you’ll just have to wait in limbo a while longer. And when you are confident in your ability to respond quickly, you can tell people exactly what a non-response means.
These responses can be quite short-“got it” is a favorite of ours. Being responsive sets up a positive communications feedback loop whereby your team and colleagues will be more likely to include you in important discussions and decisions, and being responsive to everyone reinforces the flat, meritocratic culture you are trying to establish. Most of the best-and busiest-people we know act quickly on their emails, not just to us or to a select few senders, but to everyone. There are people who can be relied upon to respond promptly to emails, and those who can’t.
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