The Email Dump
I spent this summer catching up on the backlog of work I wasn’t able to get to when things had been much busier this spring. The last item on my list? Dealing with the thousands of emails in my out of control in-box.
I’m one of those people who is actually pretty efficient with email. We’re a small organization with good work norms, which helps ensure that none of us are swimming in email. Nevertheless, my inbox had gotten out of control. To figure out what to do I pulled out some of my favorite articles on email management to see if they might inspire me…
1. Sarah Green, “Responsiveness Trap” In this funny piece, Green reminds us how we have moved away from the benefits of email. Email allows for asynchronous conversations: you receive a question, reflect on it, and then respond in a thoughtful way. Instead, our goal today is to “get through” our email so our quick responses and lack of reflection end up creating a flurry of new (and unnecessary) emails. The dates of most of my emails were up to 9 months old, though, so I decided I wasn’t stuck in the responsiveness trap.
2. Coping with Email Overload by Peter Bregman helps readers learn about the value of reading email in focused batches to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Interestingly, he learned this technique after returning from a technology-free vacation where he noticed…“I had hundreds of email messages waiting for me. I took a deep breath and started in on them. Three hours later, my inbox — a week’s worth of messages — was empty.” Was that the answer? A full day (or more) spent sifting through old emails until my inbox was back in order?
I was torn. Were these emails worth this kind of dedication? Or was this huge pile of dated emails more likely to be the last step in a neglected email chain – the meeting that had long ago been organized, the idea mulled over and finally taken action on, the request for information that wasn’t really needed after all.
I noticed myself fantasizing about a friend who had suddenly lost all of her emails because of a technological glitch. Suddenly she was freed from, as Sarah Green puts it, the “cacophony of voices all shouting for my attention, shouting so loud I can’t hear what anyone is saying and I start wanting to scream loud noises myself.”
…Would it be fair to fake a technological glitch? I became increasingly curious about finding ways to make these emails disappear. Maybe I didn’t have to fake a technological meltdown, maybe I could simply adopt a new practice – the email dump. Every few months I’d take my oldest emails and I’d put them in a folder marked for that year. I wouldn’t review them or angst if I was about to miss something important. Instead, I’d just file them away.
I made the change and felt instantaneous relief. Suddenly my inbox looked more manageable. I also knew where to look if I needed one of those old emails in the future… but I’ll bet you a 1,000 emails I won’t ever need to!