The One-Touch Rule That Will Save You Hours in Your Inbox
Nothing crushes your post-holiday glow quite like coming back to a jam-packed inbox. One minute, you're reminiscing about the joy-filled festive season, the next, you're scrolling through a staggering number of unread emails, desperately wondering where to start, and questioning why you thought it was a good idea to take extra time off over the holidays in the first place.
This post is about how to easily manage your post-holiday inbox and start the new year off the right way.
As an added bonus, there are a few tidbits thrown in to prepare your inbox for your next holiday.
The Easy Option
There is one quick and easy option which would see you in inbox bliss - you COULD delete everything.
In 2013, the German company Daimler implemented a “Mail on Holiday” email policy.
Employees had the option to set their emails to auto-delete while they were on holiday, with the aim to ensuring all employees are taking full advantage of their time off, and return rested and without that bulging-inbox anxiety.
However, this approach isn't for everyone, or for every business.
If you can't Select All+ Delete, here's the next best option:
Start Here
Check your calendar for your first day back.
Cancel/reschedule any non-essential meetings. While having a quick scan through the meetings in your diary, be brutal and cancel (or reschedule) everything. Be kind to yourself and give yourself some breathing space. Aim for 3+ hours on your first day back.
Set your IM status to Do Not Disturb, and utilise this time to get your feet under the desk and sort out your inbox.
Inform your team/your manager what you'll be doing. If they need you urgently, provide an alternative contact option.
The One-Touch Rule
Tackle the Inbox
Scan the last few days in your inbox. You're on the lookout for anything flagged, tagged High Importance, or with a subjects like "READ FIRST", or "Welcome back - Urgent Do Today"
Set up rules (or 'Filters' if you're using Gmail) to automatically route emails from your inbox to specific folders, archive, or delete. Start with easy items like newsletters, any subscriptions, even meeting invites.
Alternate sorting by subject, and sender, to scan through picking up conversations you were looped in on. Get the gist of the matter and do something with it. Remember the one-touch rule, and move at speed.
Triage Time
When you've reduced your inbox to a fair state and cleared the clutter, it's time to triage the rest.
Sort by date, and start with the most recent. If you need to, you can scan through the thread to catch up on the back & forth of the conversation.
Take actions from emails and put them on your To Do list.
Avoid replying to anything at this stage, unless it falls into the 2 minutes or less approach (if so, do it straight away). If it takes more than 2 minutes, put it on your To Do list and utilise the one-touch rule and do something with that email and move on.
If you find a task/email that you can delegate it, do so, and move on.
Team Check-Ins
It is important to check in with your team. However these can go one of two ways.
You know your team better than anyone, pick one, and choose wisely:
Meet with your deputy/team early on your first day back, saving you from having to wade through email threads. A succinct verbal update will quickly identify the issues that still need to be dealt with, and those that have since been resolved. Allowing you to effortlessly file or delete all that correspondence.
OR
Focus on the inbox, reschedule the team catch-up to later in the week. Meeting too soon could easily see you getting pulled into something you haven't planned for, derailing your entire day or week.
Do This Before Your Next Vacation
Set a sensible Out of Office message with a couple key components:
Be clear with your messaging on who is deputising for you while you're away.
Extend your return date into your first day back to give yourself some breathing space.
Reschedule any non-essential meetings on your first day back. Prioritise you, your mental health, and your inbox. These are the priority for your first day back. Most meetings can indeed wait.
If you need to redefine your sense of urgency, check out point #3 in this post.
It’s Just Too Hard, I Can’t Do This!
If it all seems just a bit too hard, and you can’t face your post-holiday inbox. It’s time to outsource.
Contact us at willow. Professional Services for advice and expertise on managing your inbox.
