by Justin Collinge
Story 1: Today
Having eaten breakfast and walked the dog it was 8.30 when I sat down with a steaming Brazilian blend to get on with the day’s work. As always, the first thing I did was open Outlook and I watched 72 emails that had piled up since yesterday morning began to drop into my Inbox. A quick scan showed that my excellent spam filter had done its job and only two of the emails were ones that I didn’t want to receive. That left me with 70 messages to deal with before getting on with what I wanted to do today.
Several I could skim and delete, some were articles I highlighted to read at a later date when I had time (huh!), some I responded to immediately, some were requests for information which needed a bit of work to sort out, a couple were links to YouTube videos which friends thought I’d find funny (I did) and one was a link to a talk which I set up to download onto my iphone to listen to later.
Phew – they were finally finished at around 10.30. However the responses to my responses were beginning to come in and needed a response! Recognising the day was leeching away I minimised Outlook and began to think through what needed to get done today, though if I’m honest I was a bit half-hearted and tired and I kept being distracted by the popups showing new emails coming in. The rest of the morning disappeared in a mist of busyness until I stopped for lunch wondering what I’d achieved.
Story 2: Today
Having eaten breakfast and walked the dog it was 8.30 when I sat down with a steaming Brazilian blend to get on with the day’s work. As always, the first thing I did was to put the laptop aside and make a list of what I wanted to achieve today. There were lots of things needing my attention and so I prioritised the list, making sure the most important were going to get done first when I had plenty of energy. That completed, I opened Outlook and scanned the 72 incoming emails to see if anything was really urgent. Assured it could all wait until later I got on with the things at the top of my list.
At 10.30 I looked with satisfaction at the finished proposal – my first priority to do today. It had been quite complicated but had come together well. With a sigh of satisfaction I got up to make some fresh coffee which I enjoyed while dealing with some of the emails. At 11.15 I turned off (not minimised) Outlook and got back to the things on my list. I checked my emails again before lunch and dealt with those left over in the last hour of the day when I was too tired to do more taxing work.
The truth?
Both stories are true! Story 1 recounted a day 6 months ago. Story 2 recounted yesterday. The quality of my work (and to some degree my life) changed when someone asked why I allowed other people decide my priorities for the day. Learning to turn Outlook off and give my easily exhausted pre-frontal cortex a chance to focus was an important step forward for me. How about you?
Call to action:
- Try one day of prioritising your time like in Story 2. See how it works for you.
- Turn your email off for ½ a day and notice whether you are more or less effective.
- Write to me (Justin@Kaizen-Training.com) and ask me for my “6 excellent tips for effective email use”
