eCentral Business Show^©

How to get control of email with Steuart Snooks

Fri 7:00am 27 Oct 2017
Podcast Audio


Within inboxes continuing to overflow with excessive amounts of email, overuse of the carbon copy and blind copy functions, organisations and in box continues to struggle with the growing volume of email.

Steuart Snooks expert in productivity and keynote speaker comes on the show to speak with us about ways to get control of your inbox.

This simple methods become great habits to keep your inbox empty.


Video Transcript
How to get control of email is what we're talking about today on the ecentral business show I'm John Nayler. I'm joined by Steuart Snooks expert the field from solutions for success. Great thank you very much for coming and speaking to us just quite efficient oh yeah that's right now how to get control of email it's something that you work with larger organization smaller organizations lots of people around productivity how do you get control of email good question this it's one of the big folk ways in the modern world mmm I find a boils down to three key strategies we've got to get control of when we're looking at it don't allow it as an interruption constant distraction because that causes multitasking and a whole range of negative impacts that come around not controlling when we're giving the mental space to that function hmm the second one is is what you do when you do get in front of email mm-hmm what's the decision making the process that you go through and that's that's kina turn that's a big one and the third one is where do you move it to once you've made a decision and taken some action on where do you store it rather than just leave it in the box which is what people are doing more and more these days oh yeah okay cool so if we don't mind we'll just drill down on each of those a little bit more so that the when part I mean shouldn't we be checking email all the time I do you know what what are you suggesting there well that's that's the natural thing to do because it's coming as a constant stream there's a temptation to check it all the time there must be something there that could be something there a lot of our work is driven by so we're interested to know what comes in and it's our nature we have FOMO fear of missing out we wonder what we're going to miss yeah so a bit of check you know because it might be something good might be something important mm-hmm that only happens about two to five percent of the time but out all behaviors drool towards just in case hmm and it's not the most effective way to handle it yeah and there are some models that I'll show people about how often during the day and what times that I would be best and it depends on your role if you're in a highly a customer focus for our frontline customer service admin reception you might have to check it quite often but even then I would suggest check it at a schedule block of time and then get back to doing the things that probably came in for email instead of multitasking because there's lots of research indicating that multitasking is very poor for our productivity and it's poor for the poor our brain in fact I'll have a little exercise in my workshops okay firstly also we're not truly multitasking we task-switching human beings don't multitask not even not even women yeah really rule revelation okay we're task switching mmm women can do this quicker than men generally speaking how about the way that the brain is wired mm-hmm so we'll do a little exercise I'll get people to have right here the numbers 1 to 26 with the timer or time that and then we'll whatever lives as the alphabet I'd is it mmm time at the - times up and most people sit between about 25 and 40 seconds mm-hmm never say ok near multitasking better number later number a 1 B 2 C 3 quicker - came to finish it said 26 and you see pins flowing through the year and people on like this yeah really 50 ID one hundred three hundred percent longer right to do the same two tasks when they're trying to do them simultaneously okay right what happens is every time we switch it takes time for the brain to get up to speed where left off mm-hmm that's so B we're losing time and losing track so as I say when we multitask we work harder for poor results and we often make mistakes sometimes we know look I've got a 24 or sometimes we don't even realize that we've made a mistake yeah right and so this is what multitasking does it gives the impression of going fast cuz we are we're working harder but we're not actually making as much progress we're spinning our wheels okay so anything that drives multitasking like email is something that we really should get control off and be proactive rather than reactive yeah okay and if it regimented about what you in me do it but now we will run out of time we don't drive through these boards just so so we get back to our email perhaps no there how about the what will you touch on what there what what's that what is that about well the reason the weight matters so much is because now you're in the state of mind to do the thinking that's needed to make the decision that's needed take action mm-hmm and when we look at an email our aim should be to handle each email only once okay your time our time is too valuable to have a look at an email more than once surely all right the points we get and so the 4d protis is the is the methodology that I found it allows us to look at it in at once and move it on and so there's only one of four things we ever do with that email and once you realize that it becomes easy and the first one of course is everyone's favorite delete delete yes okay and it's either spam something you never wanted in the first place so you would unsubscribe or if you have subscribed or move to choke or somehow make sure you don't give it again if that's possible 75% of what people complain about is spam is actually things they've given out an email address for if you want to do online banking shopping you want to download an app you have to give out your email address so now you're gonna get stuff so make the decision I don't want to get that stuff anymore an unsubscribe mm-hmm or I'm hoping for her to keep coming but I'm not engage with this particular month version so you delete it and the third one that you want to leave he's the one that's legitimate but you don't have to keep it yep the boys got pipe that's all I need to know delete delivery boy yesterday delay so that's the first day the second day is do it now and this is where you can take the next action on an email in about two minutes or less mm-hmm no gotta get it wrong mm-hmm and it's surprising how much we can get done in two minutes a focused attention right here right now hmm it's amazing you can open up that spreadsheet make a modification save it closer to touch it put it on the hard drive send off a medium request to talk about the result and then follow them or you can do that all in two minutes or less either by a third day the third day is delegate to someone else the new eye-candy dump or somebody else yes this is very popular very popular in Victorian let's call the hare pass in hey I got someone else yeah okay and with suitable instructions and then fallen orderly and the fourth one's the big one is make a decision like involves thinking then thinking involves time which is why controlling the time is so important and the three possible decisions you might have to make is I've got no further action that I can't delete and I do have to keep it where am I gonna store it mmm and then you store it in the appropriate place mhm the FIR the second one is when am I going to do this I can't do this into this this is actually a piece of work and you I get people to convert it into the calendar now it makes you think about how long it's going to take because I need to block some time in the calendar how much yeah when have I got time you look at your calendar I've got a few different options which would be the best time given the rest of my workload and so we make a decision in context with the rest of our workload instead a bit not isolation in an inbox ok and then you converted over to the calendar and it's now in the appropriate place to be dealt with at the appropriate time you know and as you do that there's a whole lot of workload management things that I show people how to to do to make you so they calendar ok and the last thing yes is sometimes you've got to wait sometimes you can't move this email any further forward waiting for somebody or something else hmm so I get people to add of a minor pop it in a pending folder until bit of reminder yeah it's out of sight out of mind now if you got a DSO she ate it with that no fun birds are four days well it comes up to decide no I can't so I've got the four days with 3w send to them which is where am i story that when am I getting to it or I'm waiting and it goes in the white file okay once you do that to each email there's no way alright and what's and then quickly wrapping up and the where power it is okay once you finish with the weirdest story most people have got folders and subfolders and sources of lots of folders hmm and the key is to simplify that hmm the ultimate model of simplification is down to one single folder okay and as I say to people you're already doing it here you probably use your Google hmm how often do you use Google no all the time all the time and what is Google it's just a big search engine it I disagree I reckon it's a big father Kapaun okay cool with a powerful search engine so you can find stuff and that same principle can be used for email pop it into one folder and use the power of sort by the columns or search any network you can use categories instead of folder names so that everything it's the following decisions really easy you can file in one click it's there get it back again okay cool cool all right now we're at times to it now so around those three w's you get things done you get your email box empty you're more focused around your day will you stay on talk to me about productivity in another video yeah yeah how do people find you off the back of this video if the websites probably the best place LinkedIn on the web site or Google my new new ish website Stewart's books calm yeah okay you can spill that you probably won't get it the right way because Moore's police you need a Googler find you yet I've been all three Stewart severe all pointed up to the right website tremendous in case you would thank you very much come on a business show great advice there from Steuart Snooks I will talk to you again next time on the east central business show I'm John Nayler.