I just finished watching Carson Tate’s How To TAME Your Inbox webinar this morning. I must say it’s refreshing to get reminded on the best way to manage our emails better. The advice is not new to me since I also just finished reading Carson Tate’s book, Work Simply. However, the webinar took it a step further by visually showing us the tips and strategies we can reapply in our daily lives so that we control our inbox better.
How To TAME Your Inbox
Strategies to Take Back Control of Your Email
Tuesday, 1 August 2017, 11:00 am
I want to make sure I document all my learnings while it’s still fresh in my mind so that I have something to refer to if I need a refresher. I intend to follow all the tips and strategies provided by Carson Tate in the webinar. But we’ll never know, I might go back to my old ways and need a wake-up call to change my ways. So here are everything I could remember from the very enlightening Tame Your Inbox webinar.
I saw these email statistics and was stunned!
Workers spend 41% of their day managing their inbox.
Email volume is growing at 6% per year, and by 2018 you are expected to receive an average of 140 emails a day.
And email overload has gotten so bad that 50% of office workers admitted to checking email in the bathroom! (This does explain why there is hand sanitizer available throughout offices.)
It’s no wonder you feel so overwhelmed by email!
This webinar training is for you if you:
Want to save at least 2 hours of email processing time each week;
Want to never forget to follow up again;
Want to automatically prioritize all incoming emails and never overlook an important email again.
THREE STEPS TO TAME YOUR INBOX AND TAKE BACK CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE
STEP 1: Stop Re-Reading Your Email
Email Agility System
- Read
- Decide
- what is it?
- does it require action?
- Act
- If it requires action
- do it
- delegate
- convert to task
- If it does NOT require action
- delete
- file – goal is to have a good retrieval system
- when will I need to access the information again?
- do I need to retain it for legal purposes?
- where else can I find this information?
- If it requires action
- Contain
- move to file folders
- move to trash
- move to calendar
- move to task list
STEP 2: Automate E-Mail Processing
This is where we ask technology to work for us and make our inbox for us.
Technology tools to automate email processing:
- Rules in Outlook OR Filters in Gmail
- automatically process incoming emails
- rules in Outlook – specific criteria on how emails are managed
- Gmail filter – automatically forward messages and put labels for incoming messages
- use it to automatically file, respond, forward and setup specific notifications (e.g., notification whenever your manager sends you an email)
- Conditions Formatting in Outlook OR Labels in Gmail
- allow to color-code emails – visually prioritize emails based on sender, subjects or based on where your name is (to: or cc: field)
- color code emails from manager, top clients, top prospects, direct reports, where name appears in cc line, where name appears in to line
- The Waiting For Rule
- automatically track all of your open or pending requests
- cc yourself on the outgoing email and a copy goes to a folder you set up (e.g., pending items).
- it gives you one central place to check all open items
STEP 3: Focus Your Attention
Time is finite – we only have 24 hours a day. Let’s use the time for more important stuff.
Turn OFF new email notification alarms.
Before I end this post, I want to share that Carson Tate is offering a full course on Tame Your Inbox. It includes 6 modules (email agility system, automate email processing, how to write more effective emails, use the email subject line, write your emails once and email management best practices). The course is at $350. For more information, you can go to this link.
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