Bonjour. In this video I want to share one very simple question that can completely change the way you manage your inbox.
I am in the beautiful city of New York. You can see behind me Manhattan. You may be able to spot the Statue of Liberty in the background. I am working with a global consulting firm. One of the things we are working on today is email management as they all feel completely inundated with emails. They are receiving at least two to four hundred emails per day, which is completely insane.
I asked a question this morning which quite surprised them. “Look at the first ten emails in your inbox, and tell me out of those ten emails how many of them will have an impact long term on your performance?”
Do it yourself. Look now at the first ten emails in your inbox and ask yourself how many will truly have an impact long term on your performance?
The answer I got today was one maximum two.
So what…?
My point is this. If most of the emails you are receiving will have little impact long term, why are you spending so much time on them? Most of the emails that you receive are not worth more than five minutes of your time. The key question you need to constantly ask yourself is this: “What impact long term?”. Four simple but powerful words.
Let me share an example. I receive an email, read it and think “I could do the perfect answer in about half an hour.” Then I ask myself “What impact long term?”. If this answer is very little, I decide to do a bad job in five minutes because I’d rather spend the other 25 minutes on something far more important.
Believe me, most emails are not worth more than five minutes of your time. You have to accept to do an average job on a lot of emails, and avoid being a perfectionist on everything. Because if you try to be a perfectionist on everything, you’ll end up being completely inundated and struggling to spend time on the things which really matter.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this week WSLB tip. I am now going to get back to having fun with my clients and then will make the most out of the evening in New York.
A bientôt
Cyril
