My theory was that if I could get to inbox zero before the holidays and put a system in place to keep it at inbox zero that I would be able to maintain my tidy inbox by building the right set of habits while my volume of email was lower than normal. By getting in the habit during a down time, it’s been easier for me to maintain the system now that my volume of email is picking back up to its normal amount.

Here are the ten things that I am doing to keep my inbox at zero:

1. Archive or delete mercilessly. In order to get to inbox zero the first time, you need to archive or delete mercilessly. My first pass focused on getting rid of anything that I didn’t absolutely have to respond to right away. I also archived anything more than three weeks old. Be realistic about whether you will ever respond to an email, and keep the must-haves while getting rid of any nice-to-haves.
2. “Must Respond” folder. I created a “Must Respond” label in Gmail (other email programs call these folders), and put it at the top of my labels. Whenever I run across something that needs anything more than a quick response, I tag it with the “Must Respond” label. During my vacation, I was able to keep up with inbox zero by dumping any email requiring a response in the “Must Respond” bucket right from my phone. I called this “Must Respond” as a reminder to myself that the “nice-to-respond” items don’t get this label.
3. “To Read” folder. I also have a “To Read” label that I use when I am pressed for time. Email that will take more than a few minutes to read goes into this folder. This is only for the critical stuff, not those things that I would like to read if I ever had time (those get skimmed & archived). Market research reports, meaty client emails and other important communication gets the “To Read” label.
4. Tasks. I also made sure that I had Hiveminder (my task list of choice) set up to accept emailed tasks before I left for vacation. Any emails that are really tasks get emailed to Hiveminder to get the tasks out of my inbox and into my task list where they belong.
5. Filters. I’ve been using filters for a long time, primarily to automatically add labels to incoming emails. I have filters for each of my clients where any email coming from their domain or being sent by me to their domain gets a label for the name of the client. I also give those labels colors so that I can see at a glance when I get an email from a client. While this doesn’t directly impact inbox zero, it does let me archive with abandon without fear that I’ll lose a client email.
6. Turn off notifications. I don’t check email constantly, and I don’t get little bings and bongs or flashing lights every time I get an email. It’s just too distracting, especially when I am focused on client work. I check it regularly, but on my own schedule. I like to check in on email during my downtime while I’m waiting for someone to call, waiting for a page to load, or during other downtime, and I make sure that I at least glance at it every 30 minutes.
7. Process in chunks. I like to work in chunks, so even when I “check” my email, I don’t usually touch it unless I have at least a few minutes to focus on processing it. I also try to do this processing when I need a break from another chunk of work. For example, if I’ve been working for two solid hours on a client project, I might take a 15 minute break to do an email chunk before getting back to client work. In these email chunks, I respond to what I can, file others into “Must Respond” / “To Read” folders and archive anything that doesn’t need a response.
8. Canned responses. I’m starting to use more canned responses (also called email templates) for common questions or frequent emails. You can still customize them, but it saves a lot of time if you have the meat of the email already in place (Celine gives more tips on using canned responses here).
9. Unsubscribe. One key to keeping email under control is to get less of it. I’m being more honest with myself about email newsletters and other updates that aren’t really valuable. If I don’t absolutely need the information and don’t look forward to reading it, I unsubscribe.
10. Be realistic. Be honest with yourself about how much email you can realistically respond to without sacrificing more important goals. Use shorter responses whenever possible, and don’t beat yourself up when you just don’t have time to respond to something.

The key to maintaining inbox zero is to find a process that works for you and then stick to it. It isn’t rocket science, and it takes a a time commitment to get everything set up at the beginning. However, if you set up a process that really works, you will spend less time on email while doing a better overall job of managing your inbox, instead of letting your inbox manage you.

What are your tips for managing your inbox?

Photo credit: Flickr user shareski http://www.flickr.com/photos/shareski/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Inbox Zero

I usually manage to get my inbox under control right before I take a week off during the holidays, but by the time I return to work, it has usually filled right back up with new email. This time, I’m making a real effort to keep it at inbox zero for more than a few hours. I went to inbox zero about a week ago, and I’ve managed to keep it at zero all week by spending a little time each day responding to what I can and moving everything else into areas for response or further reading while creating tasks for to-do items. By keeping up with this process during the holidays while the volume is more manageable, I hope that I’m building up habits that will help me continue to manage my email in 2010. Even if you don’t aspire to implement inbox zero over the long-term, there is something very refreshing about starting the new year with a clean inbox.

Paperwork, Planning and Finances

This is also a great time to get all your paperwork, planning and finances in order. I plan to tackle that pile of paperwork accumulating on my desk that really should be filed, and it’s a great time to get everything ready for your taxes. You should also take some time to set your goals for 2010 and come up with a plan that will help you achieve them.

Relax

Nothing helps me get a fresh start like taking a few days off to relax and recharge. It’s hard to get a great start on the year if you are overworked and exhausted. I took most of last week off to visit family, but the holidays come with their own stresses. I plan to work like mad on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get the rest of my work done along with some paperwork and other business; however, I’m going to take a nice, long four-day weekend off at home to relax, read and hit the gym to start the new year feeling great.

What are your favorite tips for getting the new year off to a great start?

Photo by Flickr User Daniel Voyager used under Creative Commons.

Ask any telecommuter for a downside, and they’ll likely start talking about the isolation. It’s more than discussing last night’s game around the water cooler. When you’re physically in the office simply doing your job, your presence is a constant reminder to the rest of your team of the value you add to the company. No virtual project management site can replace the spontaneous collaboration that happens in the hallway. And when the boss is looking for someone to play a role on a key project, odds are her first thought isn’t going to be that guy sitting 200 miles away.

So how do you sit in your pajamas all day and stay connected to your peers?

It depends on the company, and it depends on you.

It Depends on the Company

It’s not about you or your job. It’s about the culture. How much conversation typically happens in the hallways? Do folks tend to work from home in the evenings or take their work on the road? How much work is planned in advance vs. what happens spontaneously?

If you want to work for a telecommuting-friendly company, consider working for a nonprofit organization or a vendor that services nonprofits. In general, you’d be hard pressed to find an industry more conducive to non-traditional work environments than the nonprofit sector. I’ve attended a number of nonprofit conferences where I continually meet folks who, like me, work full-time for geographically-distant causes.

Of course, if you are working to provide a direct service you need to be where that service is. However, there are opportunities to work for organizations where they may be grateful to have your expertise without the overhead of having you on site. While nonprofits do traditionally pay less than comparable jobs in the for-profit world, the compensation is not as bad as you might think. And you have the warm fuzzies of working for the greater good. Check out the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) for more information about working in the nonprofit technology world.

Regardless of the sector, whatever you do, don’t expect the culture to change to suit you. If your co-workers rarely log in to a project management/collaboration web site; if they never have conversations via IM or Twitter; if emails are rarely longer than 5 words; if their idea of an impromptu conference call involves a cell phone in speaker mode…they’re not going to change for you.

Last week I was visiting my office, as I do each month, and I asked my co-workers to share with me any challenges they’ve had working with a telecommuter. They expressed that they feel bad that I miss some of the casual hallway conversation, but for the most part not much is different. They IM with me just as much as they IM with each other. In fact, after over three years we’ve developed our own shorthand language that works well for SMS and IM. We use a variety of web-based tools to keep in touch and stay organized. It’s just part of our culture, regardless of where everyone is physically.

If you can’t figure out a way to comfortably work in the culture of the company even when you’re not there – without expecting anyone else to change their habits – then you may be wasting your time. Even if you are perfectly comfortable with telecommuting, have an ideal home office, and have your supervisor’s buy-in, you will probably feel frustrated and disenfranchised in the end.

It Depends on You

So you work for a progressive company that loves to communicate via instant messenger or Skype. They use web apps or VPN and nothing important happens in the office anyway. Home office here I come, right? Not so fast.

Your coworkers can’t see that you’re busy. They can’t tell when you’re in a good mood. Except for scheduled or impromptu phone calls or web conferences, you have to be comfortable showing who you are almost entirely in written communication.

There are some people who are able to comfortably write emails that aren’t too long, aren’t too short, and it’s the same as if they were standing in front of you. They make ideal telecommuters. And there are others who have difficulty coming across as they intend in writing. Those folks should stick close to the office.

Here’s something you don’t want to hear: The successful telecommuter practices Inbox Zero. That’s right, you need to make sure that every email is read and dealt with in a timely manner. You’ll need a system for quickly responding to IMs and other messages, even if it’s to say you can’t deal with it at the moment. Superior electronic organization skills are key to a telecommuter’s successful relationship with peers.

If you can’t keep up with your email and other electronic communication when you’re face-to-face with your coworkers, forget working remotely on a regular basis. You’ll have all your typical email from the outside, plus additional communication from co-workers who can no longer just shout at you from down the hall. Imagine how your coworkers would feel if they asked you a question in person and you routinely ignored them for a few hours…or a few days? Whether it’s IM, Twitter, Skype, the telephone or the inbox, you need to get on top of the communication tool that’s as readily accessible to you and your coworkers during business hours as conversation. It’s not always realistic to expect people to call you for everything.

Fellow telecommuters: any advice you’d give to someone just thinking of taking the leap?

Last week, Google introduced the Multiple Inboxes Lab, which works for both @gmail.com and Google Apps addresses. This lets you sub-divide your inbox into multiple views; check out Simon’s Multiple Inboxes screencast from yesterday for an overview. I didn’t enable the feature for a few days, thinking that I already had a pretty good system for getting to Inbox Zero and staying on top of what needed to get done. Turns out that multiple inboxes makes a good system even better.

You can get quite creative with the panes you have set up in your Multiple Inboxes beyond the default is:starred or is:unread that it comes with out of the box. Here are two inbox panes I’ve configured that are helping me stay organized.

label:waiting

It’s too easy to send an email and then forget that you’re waiting on an answer. Set a label (I use “waiting”) for those conversations that are stalled because you need someone else to do something. By making it into an inbox pane it’s in your face all the time, so that the loop isn’t closed.

I only wish there was a way to do a relative date (for example: before:7 days ago) in the search box so I could do a better job of keeping on top of only the most stale responses I’m waiting on as those are the ones that tend to slip through the cracks.

label:read-later label:unread

My goal is always to get email out of my main inbox as soon as possible. Ever get an email that you know you have to read in more depth, but don’t have time to do so at the moment? There may be a task hidden in there, or maybe not. It’s certainly not important enough to set as an actual task yet. So this label is for emails that I need to read later, but haven’t yet.

The key to this inbox pane is to label the message without marking it as read. Once you’ve read the message, there’s no point of seeing it as a message to read. To do that, select the email, and then the label from the new “Move to” drop down. It’s not actually moving anything – this is Gmail, after all. What it does do is to keep the status as unread while labeling and moving the message out of the main inbox and into the Archive. Now when you read the email, it will automatically be removed from the Multiple Inboxes pane.

Are you using Multiple Inboxes to increase productivity? Share your tips in the comments.