Email overwhelm is one of the most common complaints I hear from clients. They find it hard to give away the work of answering emails despite the fact that email keeps them from doing their real work. Let's unpack what's really going on.
If you’d like one on one help with this, and wonder if becoming a client is right for you, schedule a free, 45-minute coaching call here. I have a couple slots open as of July 2023.
As I've said before, Output Thinking takes the focus off doing the work and puts it on the result, or purpose of that work - the output you want to produce. In this case focusing on the work (reading and answering emails) keeps us from realizing that email is not a monster - it's many monsters. By that I mean there are many different kinds of outputs you need to produce based on the inputs. Each email is an input. The good news is there are a finite number of different kinds of outputs and that number is probably smaller than you suspect.
Consider this work flow.
Email arrives.
You read it.
You decide what output is required.
You do something to produce that output. (Delete the email, postpone it, forward it, or answer it.)
People who are good at what they do have developed mental shortcuts that they use intuitively. For most people the shortcut they use combines steps 3 and 4 so well they don't even realize those are two different steps. And that's why they find it hard to give away the work of answering emails. Let's take a different approach.
Step 1 Make a list of Outputs
Go to your inbox and look through the first 100 or so emails. Make a list like the one below. Here are 12 different types of emails. Obviously your list will be different. Most people find that the majority of their emails make up less than 12 types.
Step 2 Group the Outputs
The next step is to group these in the following way:
Which ones absolutely need you to respond to personally
Which ones are easy to instruct someone else to respond
Which ones are on the fence between these two groups
Step 3 Triage
The trick is to determine how you know which group an email falls into. Slow down your brain as you look at a few more emails and see if you can determine some rules you use to put them into the correct group.
Write down those rules.
Automate those rules when possible. Every email client uses a different way to do this (Gmail calls them filters).
If you can't automate those rules, then a person should be able to follow them. That will eliminate the majority of the last group. The ones that are not eliminated go into the first group. Now you have only two groups:
Emails you must respond to personally (or ones the rules can't figure out).
Emails someone else can respond to.
Step 4 Document SOPs
For all the emails in the second group, write SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for each different output explaining how someone should respond. This might involve step by step instructions or writing an email template they can cut and paste or both. Usually you have them respond on your behalf, not pretending to be you.
Now the Hard Part
Give someone else access to your email inbox. Keep access yourself too, but schedule when you look at the inbox so they have time to go through it first. Give them the rules of how to determine which group an email falls into and the SOPs about how to respond. Here are some tips.
Emails that you need to respond to should be marked as such. You can look once or twice a day and respond. If it needs faster response then email isn't the right platform and whoever is reading your email should call you about it.
Until you're confident in their work, don't have them send their responses. Just have them write them and label or move the emails awaiting your approval. Schedule time once a day to review, approve and send. For the first week or so you'll also improve the rules and train the person to think more like you.
What about privacy? Make a private email for family, friends, and others you may not anyone else to see. Other than that, get over it. Decide if you want to be private or productive.
Never have someone delete any emails (except for obvious spam). They should just move them to an archive folder.
Success!
When you're confident in their responses, you can have them stop marking emails for your review and just send them. Congratulations. You have tamed the email monsters!
If you want help writing the SOPs and getting a VA to help with this, check out Jon Matzner’s Twitter feed.
Bonus Tips
These are some email rules you can implement inside your company. Unfortunately you can't force customers or suppliers to use them.
Don't use email for the wrong thing.
Progress on projects should be tracked in a task or project manager - not in emails.
Info that needs to be stored permanently should be put in a wiki or some other repository - not email.
Never, ever use email to schedule a meeting. Use YouCanBook.Me or a Doodle Poll.
Only one topic per email. If you need the answers to 5 different questions, write 5 different emails. This keeps each email short.
The subject line must be useful and relate to the topic. If the topic changes as people reply, change the subject line or start a new thread. In the best case the subject line will be the entire message. "Read This" is not a useful subject line. "Did you get my email?" is even worse.