Improving My Inbox Management
OBJECTIVES
Try the Yesterbox method
Reduce time spent answering email
Create email templates
MOTIVATION
Fun fact: I loathe my email inbox because there is never a break from it. The anxiety of a constant influx of messages and tasks - and the irrational need to respond to every email right away - can be so overwhelming. There’s always a response that needs to be sent or a dozen new messages coming in - it just never stops. Maybe you can relate.
No? Just me? Cool, cool. Moving on...
According to an article from The Muse, ⅓ of an employee’s time spent in the office is spent answering email (Lastoe, 2017). That’s about three hours of each day, approximately 13 hours of each week, and 53 hours of each month.
That time really adds up. It’s funny because people aren’t hired based on the time they're willing to invest in answering email. It’s not common in an interview to be asked, “What is your preferred email system? How comfortable are you with email communication? Are you prepared to spend ⅓ of your day managing email?” But this skill is so important. Knowing how to optimize your inbox will put you ahead of the game in your time management and client satisfaction. Fortunately, there are a bunch of resources and tools available to help with this.
I’m always looking for easier ways to manage and sustain my email inbox. I’ve tried a few email answering methods, including inbox zero, answering emails in chronological and reverse chronological order, prioritizing emails by sender, and creating designated inbox folders (Cavoulacos, 2015). Each of these worked for a short period, but they just weren’t practical for me in the long-term.
Another source of motivation for completing this experiment was my desire to actually feel like I completed a task and achieved something. Sometimes people are so focused on moving on to the next thing, and they don’t take time to revel in their achievements. More than anything, I wanted an email management system that would motivate me to complete email tasks and gave me the feeling of accomplishment that would encourage me to continue my momentum.
EXPERIMENT
Yesterbox Inbox Method
In my search for email answering methods I came across the Yesterbox Inbox Method pretty early on. This method was popularized by Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh in 2012. Hsieh wanted to stop the “never-ending treadmill” of email engagement by establishing a way to make the process more clear cut and finite. The Yesterbox inbox method is simple - each day you only focus on the previous day’s emails. So if it’s Tuesday, you focus on processing emails from Monday. This way, you know exactly how many email tasks need to be completed. You can schedule your day accordingly, and feel the gratification of a job well done when all of yesterdays emails have been handled.
There is more information about this method on the Yesterbox website, and I encourage you to dig deeper into the method and let me know how it works for you.
Time Blocking
I’m still implementing the time blocking time management method (you can read that post here). This really helped me, so I wanted to continue that. For this experiment, I am limiting my time spent on email to three hours. (Yes, sometimes I spend more time on email. I’m not proud or happy about this.)
Template Emails
Templates include canned responses to commonly asked questions, which cut down on response time. I looked for trends in things I replied to and went from there (Chua, 2014). I was surprised that I ended up creating seven templates. A big part of this was realizing that it was useful to create partial response templates and full response templates.
Partial response template
“Hi NAME, My name is Andrelisa, and I help support your journal. I’ve been forwarded your query about xyz.”
At the start of this experiment, I realized that I said this A LOT. Though the nature of each query varied, I always started with some variation of this intro, so it made sense for me to make a template for it.
Full response template
I don’t want to get into any trouble by posting a full response template, but you get it.
OUTCOMES & THOUGHTS
Y’all, I love the Yesterbox method of answering emails. It has truly improved my email experience overall. In the first week of the experiment, I respond to 99% of emails in a 24 hour period. I was not expecting to like this method this much, but I did because it gave me that feeling of accomplishment. I’ll continue to explore the other parts of the Yesterbox method and I highly recommend it.
During this experiment, I often ended up spending more time on email than scheduled. Part of that is the fact that much of my job happens over email, and many people inside and outside of the organization communicate via email. Part of that is just the fact that I tend to prioritize other people’s needs and requests. Either way, I’m working on it.
The email templates really helped. It wouldn’t take long to type out the text each time. But why waste those precious few seconds? In the long term, doing this will shave off a decent chunk of time.
For additional tips for email inbox management, I encourage you to check out this article from Medium as well!
Have you tried any of these email management methods? Let me know what has worked for you!
RESEARCH & RESOURCES
Cavoulacos, A. (2015). 4 Strategies for Keeping Your Inbox Empty: Which One Is Right for You?.
The Muse.
https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-strategies-for-keeping-your-inbox-empty-which-one-is-right-for-you
Chua, C. (2014). 11 Simple Tips to Effective Email Management. Lifehack.
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/11-simple-tips-effective-email-management.html
Hsieh, T. (2012). Yesterbox.
Lastoe. S. (2017). This Is Insane: You Spend 1/3 of Your Time in the Office Checking Email. The Muse.
https://www.themuse.com/advice/this-is-insane-you-spend-13-of-your-time-in-the-office-checking-email
Weiner, Y. (2018). 400 Tips To Master Your Email and Have a Stress-Free Inbox. Medium.
