Unlocking Productivity: How to Manage Your Inbox Like a Pro
I recently read a post in a professional development group where an Executive Assistant was asking for advice about managing her email inbox. I deeply appreciated the fact that she took the time to post, specifically because she is the lone administrative professional in her organization and needed insights from other admins. She shared that she had been out on PTO, and upon her return she went through her email chronologically and responded to each one in the order they were received. Due to this, she unintentionally missed a time-sensitive email that a meeting for that morning needed to be rescheduled, which resulted in her executive sitting alone on a Zoom call. Her executive was not too thrilled, and he told her that she needed to change something so that this didn’t happen again, so she asked the admin group for advice on what she should be doing differently. The first thing that popped into my mind was that she needed to implement an email triage system into her workflow utilizing the Inbox Zero technique!
According to EA Buddy, “Email triage refers to the process of quickly assessing and prioritizing incoming emails to manage your inbox more efficiently”. This is a beneficial process because it ensures that you are determining which emails require immediate attention, while also sorting the non-emergent items into groups of task types, setting you up for greater productivity throughout your day/week. When committing to this process, you will need to have a synchronized system between your inbox, calendar and task management. For some who use Microsoft Outlook, all of these things are rolled into the one software through Email, Calendar, and Tasks. For those in Google, perhaps it is using Gmail, Google Calendar, and a task management software such as Todoist, Monday, or Asana. For others, like me, maybe it’s a combination of all of the above! We’ll get more into that shortly, but first, we need to consider how we view our inbox.
When I first started as an administrative professional, I operated with my Gmail inbox as my task list, going through it chronologically, and tackling each email one by one. This worked for a while, when I was operating at a level 1 on the Global Skills Matrix. However, when I advanced in my career and began using Todoist as my task management software, I had to step away from the mindset of answering my emails chronologically and embrace the idea of the Inbox Zero technique.
Inbox Zero
While the name Inbox Zero may make you think that there must be absolutely nothing in your inbox at all times, that isn’t the case at all. In fact, for many administrative professionals, sorting emails into categories but keeping them in your inbox folder may be part of your task management system. In a future blog post I will talk about managing your executive’s inbox, and even though utilizing categories and flags within the inbox will play a big role in that, it would still be considered an “Inbox Zero” technique. According to Asana, “Inbox Zero is a productivity strategy that seeks to declutter your mind by decluttering your inbox through methodically deleting, sorting, or otherwise clearing incoming emails.”1 The term and system were coined by Merlin Mann on his website/podcast called 43 Folders. According to Mann: “It’s about how to reclaim your email, your attention, and your life. That “zero?” It’s not how many messages are in your inbox–it’s how much of your own brain is in that inbox. Especially when you don’t want it to be. That’s it.”2
As you prepare to embrace this technique, you must ensure that the system you create allows you to sort your emails in a way that works for you, specifically for the way you think and organize, as well as what makes sense in your industry, organization, and role. I personally have the Todoist integration added into my Outlook, and then can add emails directly into Todoist as tasks. For some of my colleagues, they use categories and folders in Outlook, and for others it’s labels in Gmail. When you are working our this system, you need to focus on the type of action you need to take with the email, as well as if it is attached to a specific project. In Todoist, I create “projects”, essentially folders, for each area of responsibility, such as “Budget”, “Leadership Team Meeting”, “X Trip”, “Personal”, “Professional Development”, etc. This means that I can keep all tasks related to each of these areas centralized. I then use my labels, which are sortable, as the types of actions that need to be taken. My labels are:
Time Sensitive
Agenda
Ask (executive)
Calendaring
Concur
Document/Form
Email Response
Logistics
Organization
Reminder
Travel
Some people keep their labels, categories or folders much simpler, with a list such as:
Urgent
Follow-up
Meetings
Clients
Projects
The beauty of this process is that there is no rule that says once you set something up, you can never change it. On the contrary, your system can be changed as often as needed as you test and adjust! In fact, in the process of writing this blog, I realized that I really didn’t need separate labels for Document and Form, so I combined them into one. Plan to take 3-5 business days to create your initial version of this system. Create your categories, labels, etc. and start using them. I would strongly advise creating no more than 10-15 options. Otherwise, it is too overcomplicated and, therefore, ineffective. But for that first few days, don’t be afraid to add, remove, and change throughout the day. Only you know your workflows. Once you get a system in place that you feel is pretty effective, it’s time to set up your daily email triage process.
Preparing for the Triage
First and foremost, it’s important to be intentional with how you prioritize the process by putting a daily block on your calendar. If at all possible, I don’t take meetings for the first hour of my day in order to prioritize the email triage. Are there days where it is unavoidable? Sure, but that just means that I adjust the calendar block for that day. My email triage generally takes me about 15 minutes, but I have 30 minutes blocked on my calendar, just in case. Do you need to connect with your executive for the first 15 minutes of the day to get their priorities before you jump into your email? Maybe you are responsible for refilling the coffee station at 7:45am before the rest of the team gets in at 8:00am, and you need to do that before you do your email triage. Maybe you need to block an hour rather than 30 minutes due to the volume of urgent emails you receive. Don’t be afraid to change and rearrange to ensure that the email triage system you are building works for you!
Next, you need to set up your daily routine to prepare yourself mentally and physically for the triage. For me, this means that I get into the office building, put my purse and jacket away, use the restroom (because, you know, after a 60 minute commute…), say a quick hello to my office mates, and ensure my water bottle and coffee/tea are filled. Then I settle into my desk chair, open my email account, and immediately begin the triage for my myself, and then my executive, until I reach “inbox zero”, which, for me, means that all of the emails have been processed into my task management system and, for my executive, means it’s been categorized within their inbox.
The next natural question is…what does this triage actually look like?
The Triage Mindset
It is important to switch from the “I’m the admin so I need to fully take care of everything immediately” mindset into the “at this moment I need to get through all of the unprocessed emails and handle emergencies in order to strategically set my priorities” mindset. You should spend no more than 10-15 seconds quickly skimming an email before deciding on which action you will take. Your choices are the four D’s:
Delete: if the email isn’t important or is junk, immediately delete it and move onto the next email. If you find yourself consistently deleting emails from the same sender, then unsubscribe or mark that sender as spam! I would recommend starting your triage by going through and mass deleting all of the obvious junk without even opening it!
Delegate: if the email should actually be handled by someone else, forward it to the appropriate individual with a 1-2 sentence directive, remove it from your inbox, and move onto the next email.
Defer: if the email is going to take longer than 2 minutes to handle, sort it into the appropriate place in your task management system, remove it from your inbox, and move onto the next email.
Do: if the email can be fully addressed in under 2 minutes, or if it is time-sensitive/urgent, then do it, remove it from your inbox, and move onto the next email.
When you move through this process, you will delete the junk, move past the things that aren’t important while still knowing what you need to do with them, and quickly come across the things that are urgent, giving you the space to address them quickly. Had the Executive Assistant mentioned at the beginning of this post done an email triage rather than answering/handling everything chronologically, it is much more likely that she would’ve caught the meeting cancellation, and would’ve been able to notify her executive before the meeting time.
Handling Emails Post-Triage
So you’ve gone through and deleted junk emails. You’ve delegated the emails that you don’t need to handle. You’ve done the quick things and the time-sensitive/urgent things. And you’ve deferred the email that will take more time/dedication by sorting them into your task management system. Now what? Well, because our task management system set us up to label, sort, or categorize these emails into the type of action we need to take with them and/or the projects they are connected to, we have clarity on what has come in that day, and what our priorities should be. This is a consistent, impactful way to ensure that we are living into the mindset of streamlining our workflow through having a centralized task list.
Embracing the Inbox Zero mindset and implementing a daily email triage can truly transform your workflow and boost your productivity. Remember, the key is to create a system that works for you, and to give yourself the flexibility to adjust it as needed. By triaging your emails and integrating them seamlessly into your task management system, you'll be better equipped to handle the demands of your role with confidence and efficiency. So, why not give it a try? Take some time over the next couple of days to think about new ways to sort your emails, and make a plan to start your email triage next week to see the difference it makes. Share your experiences and tips in the comments below – let's support each other in mastering our inboxes and enhancing our professional lives together!
1 https://asana.com/resources/inbox-zero
2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9UjeTMb3Yk
