Inbox zero method as a professional - F&L #4
Tags: failandlearn, career, devjournal, motivation
Published: 2023-04-09 15:30:01

Do you know how many emails you have in your inbox right now? No? More than 20? More than 100? Take a look, I'll wait.

Whatever the number is, does it make you feel anxious? Do you feel like it's too much? Do you not have any strategy for managing it? Throughout my professional career, I have encountered a large number of people who don't follow any strategy for managing their inbox, NONE!

During the first few years, I was really surprised to find this, but nowadays, it seems normal to me. However, it was the first thing my colleague Alex Campos taught me when I was an intern at Microsoft. I remember he told me that I had to learn to manage my inbox well, that it was something basic.

Well, apparently, it wasn't so basic, but luckily for me, I learned it at an early stage. For me, having an immaculate inbox is completely natural, and it doesn't require any effort. Want to know how I do it?

Basically, I apply everything I learned at Microsoft, and I've added a few things over time. In my case, I have some clear principles:

- My inbox is my list of important tasks.

- My inbox cannot be a source of anxiety.

- Your lack of planning is not my emergency.

Based on these principles, I use a series of techniques in my day-to-day life. Let's see them:

1. Emails never create notifications.
I have a rule in my email that marks any new email as read. I never have notifications for emails on my computer or phone. This allows emails to not distract me from my current task. No emergency should come through email, and if it does, it's poor planning on the part of the sender. To be strict about this, I have an internal rule that I can take up to 24 hours to read an email and as many to reply (if I remember correctly, I was taught double this time frame at Microsoft).

1. The first task of the day (and sometimes the last) is to spend 10 minutes organizing email.
Organizing doesn't mean replying, it means organizing. I open my inbox and start deleting anything that is not important, move notifications I want to keep to folders, and leave in the inbox anything that needs a reply from me. There are many ways to organize folders, in my case, and due to my work, when I was a developer, I had a folder for each project. Nowadays, I have one folder for each client and different folders for internal issues (Billing, Teams, IT, etc.)

1. If I'm copied on an email, I'm not expected to reply. 
Many people create endless threads where they add many people in copy. As an internal rule, if someone puts me in copy, I classify it as a notification and try not to reply to that thread. I read it, and if necessary, I take asynchronous actions, taking the time I consider necessary. But if I'm copied, I shouldn't be the person who has to manage that problem.

1. The wall of shame.
There is no need to be afraid to leave an email in your inbox for days, if there is an important email and the task needs days to be resolved, the email stays in the inbox reminding me every day that I haven't finished that task yet. Which helps me see every day that I haven't finished something and that I should probably try to deliver a result soon. When you have a healthy email management system, you can end your day with 4-5 emails in your inbox, of which 1 or 2 may have been there for several days (because I haven't replied, not because other people have added replies).

1. Create a meeting with yourself.
A good way to save time to solve tasks that have been sent to me by email and need time is to create meetings with myself dedicated to that specific task.

1. Learn to deal with people.
There are people who are bad professionals and their way of reacting is to start sending emails, outside of working hours and with urgency, over time you have to learn to understand one of the most important phrases that many people repeat "Your lack of planning is not my emergency." So that you choose the moment when it is an emergency because it is best for everyone or there is no other choice and when it is not my problem and I have other more urgent matters.

As you can see, I haven't put any secret formula, you just need to dedicate some time each day, be organized and understand that emails are asynchronous messages and you can take the time you need to deliver a good result.

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