Email Driving You To Distraction? Try These Simple Systems

You know time off isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…

In fact I think it might be a conspiracy.

It’s as though your inbox knows you’re out of the office and spitefully doubles the amount of emails you receive.

So you arrive back to the office in a worse state than when you left.

Alas, so is the way of the world dear reader. But how do you best deal with a rogue inbox…

How to stop your inbox getting the better of you

At least the snail-mail postman always rang twice… the electronic upgrade doesn’t even bother.

He just shoves as much mail as he can fit through your computer and worse… expects you to answer it quick smart.

So what’s the best approach?

Truth is you need to find the system that works best for you. But here at Shortcut we have two schools of thought that can help you work through the backlog…

1) Set time/Detail reply (STDR) – The STDR approach takes some discipline but its advocates afford it high praise.

The trick is in setting a specific time each day to deal with your emails and sticking to it.

Let’s say you decided to check your emails at 3pm each day for 1 hour. For the rest of the day, if possible, simply close down your inbox – pretend it doesn’t exist.

In the modern age that might well sound like madness, but the time you’ll save by being able to focus on your work will be enormous.

Just think how often you check or receive email during the day – say every ten minutes at least. If that email just takes 2 minutes to open, read and close (let alone deal with and the distraction element) you’re wasting 10 minutes of every hour. An 8 hour day and you’ve lost 1 hour and 20 minutes.

And remember, you’re not even dealing with those emails efficiently – they’re just acting as distractions.

So it makes sense to dedicate a specific hour to dealing with your email properly and answering each reply in detail during that time.

If you find that an hour isn’t enough, you can add more time, depending on what works for you. Those who use the STDR method in the Shortcut office tend to have an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.

But if you do decide to try out this method, you should also be sure to set up an ‘out of office assistant’ email that explains that you’re checking your email at X time and will respond accordingly after X time.

Overtime, those who email you often won’t bother with unnecessary emails because they will self-prioritise, instead only sending you the emails that count.

2) Any time/Set reply (ATSR) – The second approach that is used by some in the Shortcut office is ATSR.

This works better for those who are able to work effectively despite email interruptions or if your position requires you to check your email on a regular basis.

You check your email as normal but you answer the email with a standard reply…

You see there are essentially only two types of email. An email that can be dealt with immediately and an email that needs further consideration.

Check your email any time dealing with the first type as usual – get it out the way. But as soon as you run into an email of the second type, stop.

If it can’t be dealt with there and then, file the email to be dealt with at another time. But to prevent the person who is emailing you thinking that you’ve just ignored them, email them a set reply that explains that you’ve received the email but need to give it some more consideration. As soon as you have you’ll provide them with the reply they need.

This will help maintain an effective relationship with your clients and by highlighting those emails that require follow up, you’ll be encouraged to set aside the time to deal with them.

Happily you can print off the email and deal with it outside of your inbox, leaving behind a much cleaner battlefield.

Unfortunately the electronic postman seems to have a sixth sense about these things, so don’t expect the emails to stop!

Why I love receiving readers’ emails

Having the weekend off my inbox is now a pretty packed party. But I am managing to get round all the guests…

If you’ve emailed in recently, don’t worry, I will get to your email as soon as possible and hopefully you’ll hear from me today or tomorrow.

My colleagues think me insane for inviting so much correspondence but as I’ve often argued, I think the key to something like Shortcut is to hear from you as much as possible and to know what’s on your mind.

So, before I up sticks for today to battle through the un-read army I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that you can always email with your thoughts on anything you’ve read in the bulletin…

Whether you want to disagree with a something I’ve said, rally behind me if I’ve had a rant or whether you just want to get something off your own chest – get in touch and I’ll do my very best to answer you asap!

Category: Business Success