Ok so it’s not new year but summer is almost over and it’s back to school and back to work. Being a Project Manager I decided that I needed more organisation and control in my work life so I have a post summer resolution.
Working part-time I find that my inbox gets very full and unmanageable so I’m going to try to maintain a Zero inbox. Basically this means I will have an empty inbox most of the time which is supposed to be less distracting and will enable me to focus, hmm ok.
I googled Zero Inbox and some handy tips came up –
- Don’t leave the email client open – Ok I can do that
- Process email periodically throughout the day, perhaps at the top of each hour – ok, I might try every two hours
- First delete or archive as many new messages as possible – yay that sounds easy
- Then forward what can be best answered by someone else – ooh yep delegate to someone else, out of my inbox into someone else’s, hmmm not sure that’s going to make me popular
- Immediately respond to any new messages that can be answered in two minutes or less – yep ok I’ll try that
- Move new messages that require more than two minutes to answer — and messages that can be answered later – to a separate “requires response” folder – I’m not sure about this, it seems to me that this is basically creating another inbox that will fill up but I’ll give it a go
- Set aside time each day to respond to email in the “requires response” folder or chip away at mail in this folder throughout the day – righty ho, I’ll try doing this twice a day
Having read these tips I’m a bit sceptical now, I also came across an article titled ‘Why Zero Inbox is a Stupid Time Management Approach’. Anyway I’ll give it a month… I’ll update you next month so wish me luck