SAVING OURSELVES FROM E-MAIL OVERLOAD

1. MANAGING THE DELUGE OF LANGUAGE (NOT TO MENTION THE FACTS AND FIGURES) IN OUR INBOXES Based on Take Back Your Life!Using Microsoft Outlook to Get Organized and Stay Organizedb y Sally McGhee SAVING OURSELVES FROM E-MAIL OVERLOAD

2. AN OVERVIEW: THE E-MAIL PROBLEM/SOLUTION

3. 1. What beliefs are limiting or expanding your e-mail productivity? 2. What habits/actions are affecting your e-mail effectiveness? If You Want to Change Your Results, Change Your Approach: TWO ACCESSES

4. Ten Beliefs that Limit Productivity 1. There's Too Much Information Coming at Me Too Fast 2. I Get Too Many Interruptions 3. I Don't Have the Discipline to Be Organized 4. I Have to Keep Everything 5. It Takes Too Much Time to Get Productive 6. I Can't Find What I Need When I Need It 7. Organization Cramps My Freedom and Creativity 8. I'm No Good with Technology 9. There's Not Enough Time in the Day 10.I'm Not Organized by Nature

5. My e-mail is overwhelming me. I can’t keep up with it. Is This a Belief? Or “The Truth”?

6. What Are Your Email Habits and Actions? 1. “Trying” to Answer Every Email You Receive 2. Hitting “Reply All” Automatically 3. Checking Your Inbox Each Time A New Email Arrives 4. Answering Emails at a Set Time Each Day 5. Carefully Crafting a Subject Line 6. Using Folders to Store Reference Information 7. Processing Emails by Using a Set Process 8. Ignoring Emails That Require “Too Much” Time to Answer 9. Saving Every Email In Case You’ll Need It 10.Sorting Emails by Sender, Date, and/or Subject

8. Are our e-mails, our e-mail beliefs, our e-mail habits and actions contributing to the problem or to the solution?

9. THE REALITY IS The volume of E-mail isn’t the issue. How you process and organize the volume is the issue.

10. The solution to drowning in email overload: Quickly, effectively (and regularly!) process and organize our e-mail.

11. What habits/actions are affecting your e-mail effectiveness? How many e-mails are in your inbox right now? How many times a day do you check e-mail? How many hours a day do you spend on e-mail? How much of that time is spent hunting for a particular email?

12. What habits/actions would make you more effective? How many times, on average, do you find yourself looking at the same email? How easy is it for you to find the information in emails that you need to refer to? How do you ensure that you’re taking the actions you need to take?

13. MAKE YOUR E-MAILS WORK FOR YOU AND YOUR READER(S) THE E-MAIL PASS MODEL P–What’s the Purpose of your communication and does it relate to a Meaningful Objective? A–What Action is involved and does it have a due date? S–What Supporting documentation do you need to include? S–Have you effectively summarized your communication in the Subject line? And Turn on Auto Spellcheck if you haven’t already. E-mail is a communication tool! From Take Back Your Life!, p. 183

14. RESPOND TO EMAIL EFFECTIVELY Consider whether a reply is actually warranted. Would it add value to the communication? Reply only to those individuals who need to know. When responding to e-mails, follow guidelines on the proper use of the To, Cc, and Subject lines. From Take Back Your Life!, p. 215 (& 189)

15. AN ACCESS TO QUICKLY, EFFECTIVELY (AND REGULARLY!) PROCESSING AND ORGANIZING OUR E-MAIL: THE INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

16. THE INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT SYSTEM From Take Back Your Life! Figure 2-3, p. 32

17. The Collecting System A Collecting System is made up of a series of approved Collecting Points where you and others place your commitments and communications. These Collecting Points are physical locations that you use to capture your actions, reminders, meeting notes, and where other people drop off tasks or information for you. From Take Back Your Life!, p. 31

18. Three useful Collecting Points are: E-mail Voice mail A paper inbox Sometime during the day, you'll need to stop to process the information in these Collecting Points, and make decisions about what to do with each item. You'll either throw the item in the trash can, store it in your Reference System, or store it in your Action System. The fewer, the better! The Collecting System From Take Back Your Life!, p. 31

19. The Reference System The Reference System enables you to track information that does not require action, but that you want to keep to access later. From Take Back Your Life!, p. 31

20. The Reference System Six useful Reference Information locations are: Folder list – tracking e-mails Contacts – tracking contacts My documents – tracking documents SharePoint – tracking shared documents OneNote – tracking notes Filing Cabinet – tracking paper F.Y.I.: Your inbox is not a good place for reference information! From Take Back Your Life!, p. 161 & 169

21. The Action System The Action System will track any information that requires you to take an action.In the Integrated Management System, this type of action information is tracked in: the Microsoft Outlook Task List the Microsoft Outlook Calendar This is The Place for those Strategic Next Actions… From Take Back Your Life!, p. 31

22. A Strategic Next Action with no dependencies ACTION: Starts with a verb Is specific and measurable WITH NO DEPENDENCIES: Is free and clear of any other actions requires no preceding actions (a “dependency” means additional steps must be completed before you can take action) STRATEGIC: • Is well thought out, a “creation” and not a “reaction” • Contributes to the fulfillment of a meaningful objective NEXT: • Is the most critical thing you can do to move your meaningful objective forward at this point in time • Is “doable”; can physically be completed in one, simple step (even if it’s a part of a long, involved process)

23. Can you find the “SNAs” in this email?

24. Your Command Central for Managing the Deluge Is the Control Panel --

26. THE CONTROLPANEL The Calendar and TaskPad, on the right, gives you access to your Action System, showing your Meaningful Objectives, Supporting Projects, 1:1 Meetings, and Strategic Next Actions. The Folder list, on the left, gives you access to your Reference System, showing all of your e-mail and other folders. This view enables you to see everything you have to do in one place, which makes prioritizing and planning much easier.

27. THE THREE PHASES OF QUICKLY, EFFECTIVELY (AND REGULARLY!) PROCESSING AND ORGANIZING OUR E-MAIL: USING THE INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

28. Phase 1: Collecting “Clearing the Mind” as you capture all your commitments and agreements

29. Where will you collect all your commitments and agreements? e-mail voice mail paper inbox and….

30. Not, hopefully, in your head! Try clearing your mind and lightening the load!

31. Phase 2: Processing and Organizing Setting up Action and Reference Systems, and understanding how to effectively process and organize your Collecting Points using the Workflow Model.

32. Where will you store the reference and action information you collect?

33. How will you process and organize all that information? Introducing the Workflow Model:

34. From Take Back Your Life! Figure 3-1, p. 41.

35. The key to “processing” rather than “monitoring” … You have to slow down to speed up!

36. BACK TO THE WORKFLOW MODEL

37. Is it actionable?

38. Yes it’s actionable, but does it relate to a Meaningful Objective?

39. Yes, it relates to a Meaningful Objective, so what is the Next Strategic Action without a Dependency?

40. About that NSA: Since I’m not Deleting it, Will I… Do it, Delegate it or Defer it?

41. Now it’s your turn! Process and Organize Away!

42. YOU’RE NOW FULLY EQUIPPED WITH RAFT, SURFBOARD, AND WHATEVER ELSE YOU NEED TO SAVE YOURSELF FROM THE E-MAIL DELUGE! DON’T FORGET THE SMALL STUFF! “Small things done consistently in strategic places create major impact.”