What do YOU do to return email promptly?
The “What do YOU do?” series invites you to share your organizing insights and ideas and gives you a glimpse into my life as a messy, creative person. Jump in – you’re an expert on your own experience.
Knowing I have a lot of un-replied-to emails in my inbox stresses me out. The story in my head is something like, “I should reply to people as soon as they email me.” But that is a very stressful (and unrealistic) expectation.
Replying to email promptly and sanely.
What is currently working well for me:
I have structures. Twice a day, 3 days a week, I’ve scheduled 30 minutes with my inbox. It’s written on my Google calendar and I get a little pop-up “ding dong!” 10 minutes before hand. That’s 3ish hours a week devoted to checking and answering email.
I have systems. When folks purchase The Wish Kit or sign up for my newsletter, I use a special auto-responder that sends them a confirmation email. I don’t have to be at my desk for them to receive what they ordered. It’s sweet. It’s fast.
The other system I recently implemented is setting up 1-on-1 appointments using timedriver.com (hat tip: Marissa Bracke). This has saved me countless back-and-forth emails trying to find a convenient meeting time across time zones. Whew!
What I’m currently working on:
I want to reply faster. Confession time. At the moment, I have emails awaiting responses that are over 3 weeks old. And one from Charlie Gilkey that’s from August. Please, please don’t compare yourself against this – what I’m getting at is the anxiety I feel from having a high volume of email and not replying as quickly as I’d like. Yuck.
It all goes back to the days when I was in school and trying to hide the fact that I’d forgotten to do my homework for the Nth time. Oh, the shame… Email makes me feel this way sometimes.
Differentiating between IHO emails and personal emails. All my emails come to one box. I don’t fritter a lot of time away on personal emails during work time, but I do forget to answer them entirely once the computer is shut off for the weekend.
3 hours a week isn’t enough. It’s hard, but it’s true. I think the remedy is in the next section.
Differentiating between informational email and work email. By this I mean that some emails are ones I can read and file easily. Done. Other emails are requests for work, for time, for attention. I cannot read and file these, because they’re incomplete. I’m still learning how to say no to some requests for my time and how to follow-through effectively on others.
How do YOU return email promptly?
Please share what works for you - and what you’re still learning!
Your comments on your own process are welcome. House rules: Give advice to me or others only when it’s specifically requested. This makes exploring safe and learning possible for every reader.
833 days ago,
JoVE said:
I share the difficulty of deciding not to turn on computer on weekends but not doing personal e-mail during “work” time. Hmmm.
As for the ones that sit there? Sometimes my reluctance to reply is telling me something about work I don’t want to do. Getting clear on why I’m stalling can help. (And if you haven’t responded to that e-mail from August, does it really need a reply?)
.-= JoVE´s last blog ..Seeing Beyond Poopy Diapers Grading =-.
832 days ago,
Lori Paximadis said:
I get *so much* e-mail! I have a terrible time dealing with it all, and I’m eager to hear how other people cope. The idea of scheduling dedicated time to handling it is appealing, at least for personal e-mail (my work-related e-mails fly fast and furious all day long, and there’s no getting around that). E-mail filters help a lot — mail from discussion lists I’m on and the organizations I volunteer for get sorted to their respective folders. But I feel there’s more I could be doing.
.-= Lori Paximadis´s last blog ..tidbits: extra tidbit-y edition =-.
832 days ago,
Sarah Tieck said:
I use the Gmail tasks list a lot … helps me get the stuff out of my inbox and managed … then I can prioritize things to follow up on …
The other thing that I’m learning is to write imperfect, shorter responses. I get in “trouble” when I wait until I have time to compose a “good” response … that long, newsy letter … whereas, I think my correspondents would probably be satisfied with a hello and a tidbit?!
831 days ago,
jennifer said:
I love your ideas and observations so far! Thank you!
Along with the strategies, I keep thinking there’s an “inside job” piece to this issue that I keep almost getting, but missing. Something like, “the fear of failure is running my relationship with my inbox.” It’s something about the fear/terror I feel when I go more than about 4 days without replying to someone. That’s SO not about strategy, but instead managing that panic.
Hmm… Still working this one out.
@Jo – Yeah, “what’s behind the stalling” is a very good question. Usually there’s a deeper need there that’s not yet getting met.
@Lori – Filters rock. Especially visual people who get immediately overwhelmed by the list of awaiting emails. It’s a great strategy for minimizing that visual overwhelm – for me, anyway. And yes, there’s always more we can do. Sanely, though. : )
@Sarah – OMG, imperfect, shorter responses. Holy cow! What a concept! How is that working for you? More, please?