Is Email a stone around your neck, getting in your way and stopping you doing the important things? If so you aren’t alone. Just about everybody I know spends most of their time trying to get away from their inbox. The trouble is Email interrupts and, for some reason we feel a need to respond to everything straight away. So, we sit there with the inbox open, even though we know the majority of incoming is garbage of one sort or another.
Stopping to think, it didn’t used to be that way. When we only had dial up lines it was different. More like Snail mail. Receiving a message today and responding tomorrow was perfectly acceptable. But now we have fast Internet connections we expect to get and give instant replies. The whole situation is worse now we have smart phones. The inbox travels with us wherever we go. We cannot escape. And we didn’t used to get so much. Important messages didn’t used to fall of the front page in a heartbeat the way they do now.
Maybe that’s why we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns with Email – the more time we spend on it, the less we get done.
The software guys, and particularly those at Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, AOL etc. want us tied to our inboxes. That’s the way they control us. That’s why they put so many tools alongside, or embedded. They add labels and folders and Task lists and IM clients, suggesting these improve productivity.
The truth is we can’t do very much from our Inbox. Those productivity tools aren’t much use when it comes to running a business. There are so many gaps between the stools. That’s why big companies have ERP systems, and why small businesses have daybooks. whiteboards, Sticky Notes, spreadsheets, and Email.
But I’ve found an answer which suits me just fine, and has revolutionised my approach to work. Now there’s more focus on the job on hand, and I get to finish things I start.
I’ll spend a few minutes in between jobs checking my mail and forwarding important items to my Front Office Box. Everything, including my voicemail (thanks to Ribbit) gets sent to my dropbox. Next time I’m free I’ll go there and handle the incoming. Anything needing an immediate answer, or I can do in a couple of minutes, gets done. Anything needing thought, planning, or scheduling will be assigned to a person/day/time.
If that sounds like a ToDo list you’d be right. But my ToDo list is an integral part of the same system I use for managing my sales pipeline, customer relationships, project plans and tasks.
It’s a To Do list in the right place, alongside all the other information I need.
