Productivity Quest: Email
E mail is one of those things that people endlessly bitch about. Remember when it was fun to get emails? When that “you’ve got mail” chime would sound and fill you with warm and fuzzy feelings because someone, somewhere, took time out of their day to write you a nice note or send you a chain letter threatening your doom if you didn’t pass it on? As someone that runs their own studio (a.k.a. freelance) I have a very tumultuous relationship with my inbox. Sometimes it delivers me little twinkly moments of joy in the form of kind emails from strangers, but mostly it slowly chips away at my soul.
You’ve heard about “inbox zero”—the mythical creature that some people swear they’ve seen and who the rest of us, in our heart of hearts, know doesn’t exist. I have never been able to achieve inbox zero for more than a few minutes without “declaring email bankruptcy” (when you write a mass email to the hundreds of people you’ve failed to responded to, apologetically (or unapologetically) stating that you’re deleting/archiving their unread correspondence), but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped trying. After years of experimentation, I’ve come up with a system that has allowed me, for about year, to keep my inbox under 20 at all times (which is an outrageous accomplishment, as previously it always hovered between 300-500). My system may not be one size fits all, but there are some things I’ve implemented that I think could truly work for anyone and help you unbury yourself from massive piles of email.
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Administrative Mondays
I’ve mentioned this in my previous Productivity Quest post, but it really, really helps. Setting aside a whole day to catch up on email, bills, paperwork, etc. means the rest of the week you can feel totally fine putting it off. What I hadn’t mentioned before, is how ruthless I am about making sure that all administrative tasks happen on Monday. If a client writes me on a Tuesday and says that they need me to fill in some paperwork, send an invoice, fill out a questionnaire, etc, I say “Great, I can take care of this next Monday when I’m doing all of my admin work”—99% of the time the client is completely fine with it, and I’ve now made sure that Tuesday is spent doing actual billable creative work, not doing unexpected admin nonsense. Any tasks like these that come in during the week get added to my calendar the following Monday so I don’t forget about them, and their request email is archived.
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Morning Wifi-Free Email Sessions
Every morning, usually from 9am to 10am, I download all of my emails onto my iPad mini (for which I have one of those teeny logitech keyboards) and take it to a coffee shop or breakfast spot with no wifi. Why no wifi you may ask? Because nearly all emails involve calls to action that take you away from email. If someone sends you an app or link to check out, it can end up being the catalyst for an hour long internet browsing session. If a client sends you files to review, your concise email session has now turned into a “review client work and do revisions” session. Here’s how I deal with various emails in a wifi-free environment:
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Easy Response Emails
Fanmail, simple requests (ones in which I don’t have to consult a calendar / find files / download anything), short interviews, etc. can all be dealt with immediately. I write up the email, save it as a draft, and send it when I get to my office and am back on a wifi connection. After I save the draft, I archive their request email, as I consider it handled.
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Speaking / Collaboration Requests (and the like)
I know not everyone is getting emails like these, but I’m positive that you are getting emails that require more than a trigger finger yes or no answer. If your friend asks you if you’re available next month to go away for the weekend, you probably have to consult your calendar and check with your significant other before you give a yay or nay. Rather than doing what comes naturally (i.e. letting it fester in my inbox until I have time to deal with it), I respond immediately and say “Hey! Just letting you know I got your email, I’ve added your request to a task list of things to go over by the end of the week (have to check the calendar and make sure I have no conflicts, etc.), so if I don’t get back to you by next Monday send me a reminder.” I add the item to a task list and then archive the request email, considering it handled until I have time to go through my lists. You guys might be fine with one big to-do list, but I break mine down into “Speaking Requests”, “Interviews”, “Meet Ups”, “Partnership Requests”, “Code Fixes” and my catch all for important stuff “DO IMMEDIATELY”. This “adding stuff to lists” vs. “letting it fester” adjustment in how I handle requests has been a total game changer. I stopped getting angry emails from people waiting for a response and I rarely have to start my replies with “sorry for the delay in response...”.
By consolidating different kinds of requests into task lists, I’m able to make decisions about what to take on by weighing requests against each other instead of handling each one as they come. Also, for things like “Code Fixes” (usually little bugs or misspellings on my site or one of my side project websites), I make sure I don’t derail my whole day by falling down a jquery k-hole trying to fix a minor bug I’ve only had one complaint about. Everyone has their go-to to-do list app they love, but I just use Reminders, the one installed on all Apple devices, and sync it between devices with iCloud.
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Impersonal Emails
If an email does not address me by name (if it starts with “Dear sir or madam,” or even just “Hello,”), or is obviously an email blast going out to many people, I immediately delete it without reading. If someone is asking me to do something for them, and doesn’t devote a couple of seconds to address me personally, I feel 1000% comfortable ignoring their request.
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Brief Email Check Sessions, 2-3x Daily
After 10am, I try to spend as little of my day possible answering email, so I establish a couple of “check inbox” times throughout the day incase there’s something that needs to be handled straight away. Since I’m on the west coast, I have to be conscious of my east coast clients’ timelines so I tend to check email at 12pm PST/3pm EST, 2pm PST/5pm EST (which allows some time before their EOD for doing a last minute file delivery or revision) and then 6pm PST. I’ve never had a situation when a client couldn’t wait an hour or two for a response, or didn’t call me if it was a true emergency (if they’re an existing client, they have my number). If they’re an incoming client and cannot wait an hour or two for a response, I probably wouldn’t want to work with them anyway. If they’re already having meltdowns before a job even starts, treating every correspondence like a crazy time-sensitive emergency, that gives me a clear signal about how the rest of the job will go.
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Email Organization
Some of you may know that I have a studiomomager (a.k.a. my mom), who signs into my email a few times a day to sort it for me (and answer emails that are a super easy answer, like “what’s your office address” or “will you design my tattoo for me” (answer: sorry, no)). This has really helped me stay on top of my inbox because when I sign in, emails are arranged hierarchically so I can separate high-priority client stuff from casual correspondence. Nothing beats hand-sorting, but if you use gmail you probably notice that google tries to do this automatically—guessing which emails are high-pri and which ones aren’t. If you don’t have a tech savvy parent you can hire (or an intern or something), you can do this sorting yourself by spending 20 mins or so at the start your morning email session organizing things into folders / categories. My emails are arranged into the following folders and sub-folders:
Client
Worky
- Blog Interviews (no hard pub date, lower priority than mag interviews)
- Collaborations (unpaid for-fun stuff, product partnership requests, etc.)
- Magazine interviews
- Speaking Requests
Lifey
- Meet-Ups (designers in town wanting to get coffee or discuss collaborations)
- Paperwork (invoices, NDAs, etc)
- Tech Issues (usually website bug fixes)
Friendy
- People I know
- Strangers
This level of organization is probably not necessary for most people. It’s helped me a lot, which is why I’ve included it, but unless you’re getting 50-100+ emails daily (emails that require responses personally from you), you’re probably fine just following the rest of my suggestions.
Again, everyone has tried to come up with THEE SOLUTION to solving the insanity inbox problem. I’m not saying this is the end-all-be-all path to inbox zero, but it has sure as hell helped me find my way back to a more productive daily schedule. If you just skimmed to the end and need some quick tips, here you go:
Quick Tips
Don’t treat unread/unanswered emails as task items.
Make actual task lists and respond to the person so you don’t drive them crazy. Plus, people are terrible at writing subject lines / intros that actually explain what the email is about, so you end up having to click on everything to remind you what their request was anyway.
Create time restraints around email answering sessions.
We are designers, not paramedics. Nearly everything can wait a couple of hours for a response. If the email app that you use buzzes and dings every time something new comes in, disable notifications. Your daily anxiety levels will drop considerably.
Turn wifi off.
The less you are distracted from the task at hand, the faster it will be done and you can go back to doing creative work.