{"id":67,"date":"2008-05-28T19:53:11","date_gmt":"2008-05-29T02:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/?p=67"},"modified":"2008-05-28T19:53:42","modified_gmt":"2008-05-29T02:53:42","slug":"email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/2008\/email\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing email…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read a post today where someone pointed out, the goal is not to just organize your email, but actually act on it. Oh yeah. I have forgotten that!<\/p>\n

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I manage, or fail to manage, my email. I’m quite good at somethings – I have a high percentage of my email filtered into folders already, and although I’m a bit addicted to reading them instead of doing real work, I do have a system and just need to make myself use it.<\/p>\n

However my inbox constantly is overfull and weighs me down. The problem is that I use it as my memory, todo list, a “pile of hugs” (as Merlin Mann would say), and I’m sure other uses that I’m going to notice when I start going through it.<\/p>\n

One basic problem is that if I move actions out of the inbox, I know they will get lost. I’ve been on the net hours and haven’t found a solution! Everything says, “just remember them”, or “put a reminder in your todo list”. I have reminders in my todo list to go read the folders that I’ve pushed them into – I still don’t do it.<\/p>\n

The bigger picture, though, is training myself not to do as much with email; to let things go, to change my habits. I got a lot of info out of the Inbox Zero<\/a> series (there is a good video that summarizes it). It says to keep your inbox for stuff you haven’t read (and get it to zero messages each night). As it suggests, I’ve changed my “auto-check” interval to an hour. I’ll see how long I can handle that before I freak out and change it back! But the general idea is the less time you spend scanning, rescanning, re-postponing what you need to do with email, the better.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest habits I need to change is “only read email when I am going to deal with email.” I like to read email like getting a connection fix – but it has a high cost. First I don’t always get that connection fix, and second, it leaves several emails un-decided in my inbox.<\/p>\n

Another biggie for me is that I tend to use email (mainly the obsessive reading of groups folders) as an avoidance – mainly I’m avoiding thinking hard and making decisions. Instead of expecting myself to be someone I’m not – someone that can focus for a long period of time – I’m thinking I need to start having short, productive “sprints” where I focus on what I really need to do, and then take a real break – instead of a “browse email” break.<\/p>\n

What I notice when browsing through my email is that I truly don’t know what to do with many of my emails. I won’t be able to remember them, but there is no clear action right at the moment. Some of them, I want to let “gel” but worry that if I move them elsewhere, they will get lost.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I’m also noticing a lot of timesaving from a trick that the Inbox Zero page pointed it out – using quick responses (less than 5 sentences) or a question for more info to “pass the ball” back instead of holding it in my court.<\/p>\n

Another, “well duh”, that has been helping me is – changing subject lines!!! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this. So, for example, I posted a question to a tech support forum and asked for email notifications. The notification sat there – but it has an attached “todo” item. So instead of being titled, “notification of response for topic on such and such a board” I changed the title to the actual todo-item. I kind of wish I had another field to edit…but subject will do OK. (at least until I reply \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Speaking of “duh” moments – one last tip. Music!!! I usually forget to play music when I’m working, but wow, it helps me stay on task!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read a post today where someone pointed out, the goal is not to just organize your email, but actually act on it. Oh yeah. I have forgotten that! I’ve been thinking a lot about how I manage, or fail to manage, my email. I’m quite good at somethings – I have a high percentage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-balance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}