Inbox Zero – confessions of an overwhelmed mind

Merlin Mann recently gave a talk to the folks at Google about his Inbox Zero process for managing high volume inboxes (www.inboxzero.com). While Merlin’s talk was entertaining and well done, I have to be honest, I was left feeling a little underwhelmed by his overall message. He says himself his method is simple common sense and that’s what it is. Luckily, I chose not to end my journey there. Desperate as I was for any help with the hundreds of emails I get a day (some at the talk claimed an unfathomable 600-a-day!) I decided to give Inbox Zero a try. I’m happy to say there’s no turning back now; I am officially a fan and I learned something about myself along the way.

The basic premise is the practice of scheduled email processing sprints (short 5-10min) with the goal of getting messages out of your inbox. There are five actions you can do to any message: delete, delegate, defer, respond (only if you can do it in a few lines), and archive. You may be wondering why it is so important to get email out of your inbox? It’s all about your state-of-mind and the impacts are huge. I had no idea the weight my inbox placed on my life as I spent the entire day using it as a to-do list and watching messages come in minute-by-minute to be responded to in near real-time. Managing my email took so much time I often found myself looking at the clock wondering where the day had gone. Some days I had no time to do my job (or at least the fun parts). The one thing I did get from my email-as-chat behavior was stress, giant fattening scoops of it. Stress has been a very big issue in my life as of late with a new baby, a growing business, a new house being manhandled by contractors, and Russian bomber flights resuming. To my surprise, my wife noticed a change the day I started practicing Inbox Zero. She keeps telling me how much calmer I am now.

The benefits of Inbox Zero don’t end there for me, I learned a little about myself along the way. As I started processing emails, I discovered some actions happened more frequently than others. To some extent this is supposed to be the case, but I don’t think my order is, well, optimal. Take a look for yourself. Here is my current processing ranking:

Delete – My most common action is delete, as it should be. Most messages are meant to get information into your head and once it’s there, they have no further purpose.
Defer – This might seem like a bad thing, but the truth is once I finish my email sprint, I can return to thinking about the projects I’m working on and as I work on each of them, I can dig into my Action folder and address the emails relevant to that project. The act of scheduling your day (or NOT allowing your inbox to schedule your day) is very empowering. Deferred messages go into my first of two sub folders titled “Action” awaiting my further attention. My action folder is holding at about 25 messages right now, but never fear, it’s easy to prioritize and respond to a list that short. Obviously my goal is to have zero defers, but I’m not in a rush. Wow that felt good to say. There is room for improvement here, however. As I practice my craft I hope to reduce the number of messages I need to defer. Instead shifting more weight onto the other processing actions.
Respond – Respond is my third most common action, but significantly less common than the first two. As I mentioned above, most messages are meant to get information into your head. Many of the messages that require response can be satisfied with one or two sentences. No time for a novel that someone else doesn’t have time to read. I delete most messages after I respond.
Archive – Emails that contain information I may need for future reference go into the second of my two sub folders, my “Archive” folder. The search tools in Outlook and Mail.app are pretty fierce and much more efficient than searching categorized folders. I used to keep all project emails to CMA (sorry not the Country Music Awards) but looking back, I’ve never ever needed one of them so now I just say no. Also, now that I detach attachments from all emails, I archive very few messages as a file backup. I feel like I used to be a pack rat, my email used to own me: not anymore.
Delegate – The action I do least frequently is passing on work to … wait a minute!

Here’s where the bump on my head starts pushing the anvil towards the sky. Delegate is last? This is not good. As a Director working with a whole bunch of extremely talented folks who can do most everything better than me, it’s a bad thing when the last thing I do is delegate. My job description starts with the word delegate. So what do I do now? Well the first thing I’m going to do is go through my Action folder and delegate as much of that work as I can. After that I’m working very hard to increase my delegation ranking. I’ve done some thinking about why this pattern formed and I’ve boiled it down to my control freakish nature. That means I will have to pay special attention that I don’t slip back into this pattern. CFS is a sneaky sneaky disease. Hopefully now that I’ve admitted there is a problem, I will find the road to recovery. Isn’t it strange where and how you learn about yourself? Maybe Inbox Zero won’t solve your woes, maybe it will. I can only recommend frequent questioning and exploration of your daily activities as a means of learning more about yourself. Thank you Merlin Mann!

Posted by Joseph Juhnke on August 19, 2007

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