Six month ago I wrote here about the process of Overcoming Email, something that I’ve struggled with even though I’m a very organized person in general.
Six months is a long time, people, especially since I find it frustrating when projects go unfinished. See today, it’s Monday morning and whether you’re surfing for something interesting to read or procrastinating (because it’s Monday and there’s a long week ahead!), I have some encouragement for you.
Deciding once and for all to stop acting like a slave to my email has made an incredible difference in my life and business. Let me paint a picture of what it used to be like for me: every day, 100 times a day I would get an email. Sometimes up to 300 at one time (send a broadcast message on a holiday and you’ll get a lot of auto responders). Each one would come into my personal inbox whether or not it was related to business. I spent hours upon hours responding, many times reading the email, feeling stuck and then coming back to it over and over again.
My job was not to simply answer emails all day long but sometimes I felt like it, and when I would stop to focus on my attention on something else I would always get interrupted. That’s no exaggeration; between Skype, phone, IM chat and especially email I could never focus my full, undivided attention on another task. I even synced my email to my phone so I would know instantly if I got an email.
This went on for years – not just when I worked a corporate job but in my entrepreneurial work as well. In some ways it got worse because there were no boundaries. No “I’ll answer that tomorrow at 8am” but only unlimited inflow of information, requests and decisions.
The problem with living with a chaotic amount of email is that it builds up over time and we don’t realize how bad it gets until it’s truly overwhelming. And I was so busy answering email I never thought I could have time to stop and organize or restructure the way I was working… so the cycle continued.
In some ways “too much email” is a badge of honor, just like kids who complain about who has more homework tonight.
In Overcoming Email I wrote:
I was forced to admit how many ways I had given out my attention, my bandwidth, that I did not care about. Store promotions, credit card offers, mortgage companies, newsletters, ezines, daily deals, family, charities, program notifications… each of these were flowing into my inbox daily.
Before I started this process in earnest I had to acknowledge the chaotic state I put myself in. For me chaos was never deleting an email in case I wanted to read it again. Chaos was keeping too many emails in the inbox because “I haven’t read them all yet” or explored all the links, or did everything recommended in each email. Chaos was treating my inbox like a long to do list that had no priority – the most recent things got answered first, sometimes, but seeing older emails made me feel guilty. And chaos was most definitely missing out on opportunities because I couldn’t identify what was important, what was urgent, and I couldn’t make clear decisions about what to do next.
The more I read other resources and suggestions for controlling email, the more I procrastinated. So I set out to learn the best practices, implement and test them.
Then I began working with private clients on systems and email came up again and again. Pretty soon I was teaching them my methods and showing how to take action to develop a new way of dealing with email.
Finally, I’m ready to share it and have designed a course so that many people can participate. By using this model you can quickly change how you relate to email (remember I’ve been investing in learning this for 6 months and implementing in my own business all so I could shortcut the process for you!) and be more productive, accept more opportunities and feel less inbox induced stress.
Check it out:
Beat your inbox into submission
Get to Inbox Zero in an Hour – Part 2
Get to Inbox Zero in an Hour – Part 1