DEVELOPMENT
Managing your inbox
If you receive 100 emails every day , that ’ s around 22,000 to 24,000 per year – and this stat assumes you only handle each email once , which is quite unlikely . Steuart Snooks has some top tips on improving your effectiveness – and sanity – when it comes to mail management
Are you ready to revolutionise your inbox and save a surprising amount of time , effort and headspace ? In other words , effectively have your very own EA to manage email !? Let me introduce you to the 4D methodology , a proven and powerful way to process email and any other inputs . Here ’ s the key …
The 4D methodology The very first ( and only ) time you look at each and every email , ask yourself what the next action needed is – and make one of four possible decisions :
w Delete Once you ’ ve read the email , if there ’ s no further action needed and you don ’ t need to keep the message on file , you can simply delete it . This may be spam , a newsletter , an update or an FYI . w Deal If you can do the next action in two minutes or less e . g ., a quick reply , it ’ s quicker to do it right now than the time it takes to store the message , keep track of it , retrieve it , read it , get up to speed on it and then do it sometime later . w Delegate If the next action needs to be done by somebody else , forward the message to the appropriate person . w Decide If the next action needs time and effort you can ’ t give it right now , decide where it needs to be stored and when you ’ ll get back to it .
The triage method Next , my unique triage method needs you to set up three columns in your inbox . Here , you can assign a priority ( high , medium , low ), type a quick description of the next action needed and allocate
62 Executive PA | Autumn Issue 2022