As I have got rather busy in the last few weeks with Look Up And Smile and a couple of other projects I have tended to switch off Outlook for core hours during the day so I can focus on getting work done.
This is a good tactic as productivity rockets. The downside is that my inbox is getting full of unanswered issues. This evening I have hammered through a number of emails and dealt with them.
I know my friend Adam Cogan likes his rules and Rules to Better Email is a popular item in his rule book.
Most of his rules make sense. I would pay more attention if I didn't know that Adam's email is totally out of control. If he cant eat his own dog food then I might not like the taste either.
How do you deal with email?
Do you shut your email application when you have work to do?
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When I need to focus, I close my email, never for more than 90 minutes though.
But mostly I rely on two mail rules
A)Move mail where my name is not in To box to folder "_Daily review"
B) Move mail from Vendors/Newletters to "_News and Review"
This way 85% of what is left in my in-box I can action, and is usually higher priority. I review the daily review at least twice a day, and news whenever I have time spare
Hi Dugie,
yes I find filtering very useful. I use the Outlook Rules to filter email from newsletters, mailing lists, etc..
Often I will only skim through those folders every few days.
Where does the 90 minutes rule come from? Did you just find that works for you by trial and error or is there soemthing more behind 90 minutes?
I use ClearContext for Outlook - it seriously rocks, and it's the only well written Outlook plugin I've ever come across.
I've tried to vary the time, but I always come back to 90 minutes. Too much longer than this and (A) I feel I've failed in my basic time management; (B) An acceptable time frame for me to get back to those 'urgent' requests that came through while you were off the air; (C) My brain starts to hurt
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