Hi this is Cyril from Work Smarter: Live Better. In this video, I want to share with you one simple advice on how to manage your inbox, one little mind shift that can make a big difference.
Most of the people we coach, most of the managers that we coach receive many many emails. I mean an average people will receive 60, 70, a hundred emails per day. Some of my clients are receiving 2, 3, 400 emails per day. It’s crazy the volume. And one of the issue I see is, how we view our inbox.
I look at some people and they say “Well Cyril, I look on an email and I leave it in my inbox because I need to do something about it”. So your inbox is a task management system. Your inbox is not a great task management system.
I see some people saying “Cyril, I have a lot of email in my inbox that I’ve read and I leave it there just in case I need the information later on”. So your inbox became a filing management system. Well, your inbox is not a great filing management system.
I see a lot of people saying, “Well, actually I need to keep this email in my inbox because there’s a contact detail of someone that I might need in the future”. And again, your inbox is not a great contact management system.
And I see a lot of people that keep on email in their inbox that should be deleted, well your inbox not a great bin, that’s what you’ve done.
The first principle that I tried to suggest on email is: “your email is just like your mailbox”. Your email is just a receiving system that tells you, “I haven’t dealt with this information”. As soon as you touch an email, you need to make a decision and get the email out of the inbox. Your inbox is just a receiving system.
It’s a bit like going home in the evening, and if you go home in the evening, and you open your mailbox. You know, the snail mail. I doubt that you think the first letter, look at it, open it and say “Oh, I need to do something about it”. Put it back in the envelope, put it back in the mailbox. Then you take the second letter, you open it, you look at it, and say “Oh, that’s an interesting catalogue, I need to keep this information”. Put it back in the envelope, put it back in the mail box. Of course not! That’s what your inbox should be. Your inbox is just a receiving system.
This is this week’s Work Smarter: Live Better tip. I hope you enjoy it.
Any idea or anyone of you who want to share is always useful to get a view of different people. So don’t hesitate to put your comments below and share with us some of the ideas you have about how you manage inbox, how you make it easier.
Hope you enjoy it and let’s continue the conversation down there.
Thank you
