006 Productivity: Incorporating Email into Your Productivity System

This is the 6th and final episode in a series on productivity. Go to episode 1.

Do you let email drag you through your day? If you start your day by opening email, then the answer is likely YES! Letting email drag you through your day means that you are prioritizing those emails over all your other work. Everything on your to-do list. Everything on your project list. Everything on your someday maybe list. Is email that important? Unless your job description is to reply to emails (maybe you are a support person and tickets come in through email), then the answer is NO. You have made the choice to make email a priority. I know it sounds harsh, but that’s my job here – to be honest with you.
In order to be as productive as you can be, you need to approach email as you would any other input into your to do list. Set aside time each day to go through your email and process it. By process it, I mean, give it a category and take the appropriate action based on your system. As a reminder, the categories are:

1. 1. It can be dealt with quickly
2. 2. It will take time or multiple steps
3. 3. It can be delegated
4. 4. It is not right for now – ‘someday/maybe’
5. 5. It is reference material

If it can be dealt with quickly – then deal with it and move on. If it will take time – how do you feed that into your project list? You need to think of email as another input that can be scheduled into your productivity system rather than something that happens to you.
If you’d like a workbook that will walk you through this process step-by-step, sign up for our newsletter here.