Minimizing Your Inboxes

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hello, everyone.
• 00:05 Welcome back to the GoSkills course.
• 00:07 This is the productivity training.
• 00:10 I'm your host, Francesco,
• 00:11 and in today's feature, we're going to go over minimizing your inboxes.
• 00:16 Everyone gets this problem.
• 00:18 Having a massive inbox full of things to do,
• 00:21 a lot of use use our inbox as a to do list.
• 00:25 The email inbox is essentially an ever growing list of tasks and
• 00:29 of course this can get pretty messy.
• 00:31 It's a great way to collect things to do, but
• 00:34 not necessarily a great way to store things to do.
• 00:38 There are not just one inbox.
• 00:39 You think that you might just have one inbox of emails.
• 00:43 However, we have a ton of inboxes and we don't really relate to it.
• 00:47 Anything like slack, or any real time communication tool, is an inbox.
• 00:52 Anything like social media, like SnapChat, Twitter, and
• 00:55 Facebook Messenger are all a smaller version of inboxes.
• 00:59 They're more social inboxes even our post box and our pockets,
• 01:03 things that we put in there for later that we think we're gonna process are inboxes.
• 01:08 And things like Skype, as well, is another inbox.
• 01:11 We have all of these inboxes across our day,
• 01:14 you all have tons of them that you won't know about and even won't think about.
• 01:18 So it's important to understand that we have a dilemma with our inboxes.
• 01:23 Checking our inboxes is something that we do a lot.
• 01:26 Now I know plenty of people who check their inbox 10 to 20 times a day.
• 01:30 And they never fully clear their inbox,
• 01:32 they just tend to use it as to-do list, or use it as a way to project manage.
• 01:37 Now a lot of people do treat that inbox as a task list, and
• 01:40 use it as a way to remember all of the content.
• 01:42 This is something that is used across the world.
• 01:45 We never really taught how to use email effectively.
• 01:49 So we just entered the productivity world without really knowing too much.
• 01:53 The goal here in this feature is to get less inboxes and keeping them clear.
• 01:58 That has been the recommended reading for this feature,
• 02:01 which is Inbox Zero by Merlin Mann.
• 02:03 This is a great book covering how you can keep your inbox clear and organized.
• 02:08 I think, again, inboxes are like workflows as well, so
• 02:11 it's a great way to collect information and get things done for later.
• 02:15 So when it comes to inbox, here are some best practices how to handle things.
• 02:19 What I recommend doing, is changing that clearing of the inbox process.
• 02:23 Instead of clearing it 10 to 20 times a day for example, try and
• 02:27 clearing it only two to three times a day.
• 02:29 This way you can only check your email two or three times a day, and
• 02:33 avoid getting stuck in the inbox.
• 02:35 What I recommend doing is planning those in.
• 02:38 So have a first, second, and third clearing of your inbox.
• 02:42 This way, you'll actually clear your inbox each of those times and
• 02:46 you'll make sure that you will instead of being stuck inside email.
• 02:49 Of course, we have incoming emails that can be a bit distracting, but the best way
• 02:53 to do this is really to plan across your day, three is a good starting point.
• 02:57 What I recommend doing is starting a clearing of the inbox
• 03:00 at 8AM when you get into work, just before lunch at 12:30,
• 03:04 and a third one at the end of the day around about 4PM.
• 03:08 These are some really inactive times for people.
• 03:11 People tend to get into work at 8AM, people start closing up for
• 03:14 lunch at 12:30, and people start closing up for the day at 4 mentally.
• 03:18 So it's important to have your inbox clearing at this time because people
• 03:22 are more likely to be on email and also absorbing that.
• 03:26 There's a really nice rule in here called the two minute rule or less.
• 03:29 This is inside of GTD, but basically all
• 03:31 you have to do is complete tasks within two minutes, if that's possible.
• 03:35 So, for example, if you see an email pop up.
• 03:37 And it's like, can you do this quickly?
• 03:39 And you're like, okay, if it takes two minutes or less, I'll do it.
• 03:42 If it doesn't, I'll delay it for later.
• 03:44 I'll defer it to tomorrow or the next day.
• 03:47 This way, you can keep productive when clearing your inbox because then you won't
• 03:51 necessarily be distracted and get carried away with email.
• 03:55 We include in the exercise how to conquer your inbox.
• 03:57 This exercise goes into a lot more detail and will give you a lot more value.
• 04:03 There are a few tips in there, some really good ones, and
• 04:05 hopefully the concept of email feels a little bit different to you.
• 04:08 Feel free to check out the Inbox Zero by Merlin Mann definitely a recommended read.
• 04:13 Thank you very much.
• 04:14 I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next feature.
• 04:16 Cheers!

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