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November 27, 2007
Digging out from an email landfill
I just got back from a week of being on vacation and had 1,155 new emails waiting for me. I told my sister this and she gasped and said, "If I got to work and had that many emails I would just turn around and go back home!"
I am one of those people that takes every vacation day offered to me (about 5 weeks per year). I fully believe in unhooking completely now and again to get some perspective and freedom from the daily grind. I've had to get really good with my systems to make that work so that time off doesn't feel like digging out of the bottom of an endless landfill when I come back.
It took me about 3 hours to bring those 1,100+ down to zero. Here's what I did:
First, I knew the morning I got back to work I'd have about 6x more input than normal, so I blocked that extra time on my calendar to give myself the time I would need to get it processed. I think this is essential. There is no way a week of email can be processed in the same time I normally allow. I need a cushion of extra time that first morning back.
Then, I followed the 4D's:
1. I looked for the ones to DELETE. Those are easy. I scanned by sender and subject line. A huge number of them were spam or close to it. Amazing how sheer volume like 1,100+ emails also changes my standards on "nice to reads" now being deletes instead. Another day some of those might have gotten my attention, but not with this kind of volume.
2. I looked for the ones I could DO in less than two minutes and handled those. Many of those were quick read and delete/file or quick replies. Subject lines are usually a good indication of whether something can be done in less than 2 minutes. A good chunk got handled through this cut.
3. Next I looked for anything I could DELEGATE. That took more careful reading and considering. Anything I handed off to someone or someone else got filed and then tracked on either a Waiting For list or Agenda list.
4. What I was left with were about 50 emails that made it past Delete, Do & Delegate, which meant they needed to be DEFERRED. I scanned those subject lines, grouped some of the threads together to see the latest, opened up a few of them if I needed to get more information, and took a further cut at ones I knew I would not be taking action on right away. I moved those deferred emails to the best project, topic or Actions email folder and captured my next action on a list. I was then left with about another 20 that I planned on doing right then, but would take me longer than 2 minutes to finish. One or two I ended up changing my mind on and moving over to a list after all to be done later, but I did get lots of good work done in that time. By noon, my Inbox was down to zero.
My best advice is to give yourself the gift of time to get everything back in control again. Whether that's after a vacation, after the weekend or after a long meeting--a little time with yourself and your systems can do wonders.
Posted by Kelly at November 27, 2007 11:30 AM
Comments
Hi Kelly,
Great way of emptying your inbox!
Could you clarify about "I took a further cut at ones I knew I would not be taking action on right away. I moved those deferred emails to the best project, topic or Actions email folder and captured my next action on a list."?
In my understanding of GTD, deferred emails are to be put in your Actions folder only (or digital calendar). Also, emails represent work in itself and - contrary to using paper this way - shouldn't be put on your Next Actions list, I read in the book.
Why would you put your deferred emails in a Project folder or Topic folder and capture your next action on a list?
Thanks for all your tips. Great blog!
Posted by: Danny at November 27, 2007 01:37 PM
Great post, Kelly.
I'm always intrigued by how others manage the workload and the "joys" of post-vacation email management!
Posted by: Dean at November 27, 2007 08:20 PM
Nice post Kelly. In case you are a Lotus Notes user (I guess other email tools will allow setting rules or similar automated actions too) you may want to set some rules: If you can quickly decide for yourself what subjects and senders need to be deleted you can perhaps automate that by using rules, managing the mailbox partly automatically.
Posted by: Peter at November 28, 2007 05:54 PM
Hi Danny--
Let me see if I can clarify. There are two options we typically share in GTD for processing and organizing email. There are always variations on this, but here is the simplest way I can break it down:
Once you've decided your next action, you can use the actual email as the reminder or your Action lists as the reminder.
If you want to use the email as the reminder, I would suggest using the @Actions or @Waiting For email folders to hold the email, even if it relates to a project. Keeps it simple when you are ready to take action. No need to dig through countless folders and non-actionable emails to find your actionable ones. Once you've taken the action or it's no longer a waiting for, move it wherever you want. If you are going to use the email as the reminder, I'd suggest editing the subject line to tell yourself what your action is since a subject line otherwise rarely tells you what you need to do about it.
If you want to use your Action lists as the reminder, you can organize the email anywhere--it won't matter since you are not needing to track down the email to remind yourself you have action. Instead, your Action lists become the central place you look for all of your actions. This is what I do. I organize emails by the project, topic or in the Actions or Waiting folders then shoot over to my Action lists to capture my next action related to any of those. Some email programs also allow you to move the whole email over to an Action list, which can work too.
By the way, I process and organize paper actions the same way as email. I have two plastic pending folders for my hard copy actions. They are labeled: Actions and Waiting For. Anything in those folders is represented on my Action lists.
Hope this helps!
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at November 28, 2007 08:58 PM
This is a timely blog for me, as I just got a new computer and have a completely new mail system to set up. I could, of course, just move over my current Outlook set up, but something is telling me to simplify it. I still have both pcs to work with, so I can always go back and forth to my new set-up and my past set-up.
Your post is very timely and I appreciate it.
Posted by: sdann at November 30, 2007 08:21 AM
Thanks for clarifying, Kelly!
Danny
Posted by: Danny at December 1, 2007 03:46 AM
Kelly:
This is such a great story of the power of GTD. Thanks for sharing it.
I'm going to feature it in an upcoming blog post.
Craig
Posted by: Craig Huggart at December 5, 2007 03:57 AM
Before I go on vacation I set an Out of Office rule that says (but more politlely phrased) "your message has been deleted. I am on vacation and will be back on someday, if your message is still important then please resend it" and then all messages are moved to a vacation folder. The aim is to "pass the monkey" back to the shoulders of the message author so they can decide how important their message is.
When I return from vacation I turn the rule off and wait for the important messages to arrive. I process the messsages in the vacation folder when I have available time.
This sounds dracaonian but works! The last time I was away for 2 days and received hundreds of messages only 2 people resent the messages when I returned. Naturally they got my full attention
Posted by: Grant at December 10, 2007 12:53 PM
