Leadership tip of the day: Keep your in-box empty. That’s courtesy of a good friend and professional colleague who runs a highly successful business, responds to your emails or phone calls quickly and communicates openly and consistently with his employees and customers.
The question arose recently about how he stays on top of things. When you call him, he answers the calls (WHOA). When you email or text him, the response is typically quick, but at a minimum he gets back to you within a day. He hasn’t created a specific system to do this. Instead, he cleans out his email and voice mail in-boxes, which allows him to stay up-to-speed on more critical issues.
Is this easy? No. It takes a commitment to get to those communications regularly and repeatedly. You can’t let information pile up or it will bury you. He knows this, and uses it as a motivator.
Before electronic communication devices took over, we used to have paper in-boxes for memos, reports and mail. As a journalist, one of my daily jobs was to thumb through everything, decide what was worthwhile and what wasn’t. You made quick editorial decisions on what to keep or toss, and your ability to do this well heavily determined your success in being able to manage your workload.
I related a story to my friend about how fortunate we were back in the late-1980s and early-1990s to have a backup reporter handle our beats for us when we went on vacation. That person covered our stories and submitted them to our editor. When you returned recharged from vacation, your in-box was empty. That kept you refreshed for at least a week, daydreaming about your days camping, biking, sitting on the beach, playing golf, or body surfing in the ocean.
Imagine feeling that way today. It’s hard to.
Instead, many people don’t take vacations, or if they do, they spend time catching up on emails or other electronic messages so they aren’t overwhelmed when they return to the office. That’s bad. You don’t get away from the headaches of your day-to-day work life, you don’t relax, and your mind doesn’t disconnect to help creative ideas to surface.
You return tense. You feel stuck in the same rut.
In the shorter run, a system to keep your in-box cleaned up is a good solution for helping to run a business productively, and keep your brain clicking.
How can you keep your in-box minimized? Here are some tips:
Keeping your in-box empty is a success marker. It means you are on top of critical issues. It improves your mental health (and that of your employees, and by extension, your customers). It frees you up for other tasks, which are typically face-to-face communications and of more importance to your bottom line.
Making this part of your day-to-day personal operations will drive more than your bottom line. It will also free up your concentration.
That means you focus more on other tasks, and do a better job because you have the time to appropriately deal with issues that require more time. It also means that, egads, you have time to build fun into the workplace.
If you get that in-box cleared, you can play around a bit, chat with people, invent a game to engage your employees. You may find that’s the best part of staying ahead of the in-box.
The question arose recently about how he stays on top of things. When you call him, he answers the calls (WHOA). When you email or text him, the response is typically quick, but at a minimum he gets back to you within a day. He hasn’t created a specific system to do this. Instead, he cleans out his email and voice mail in-boxes, which allows him to stay up-to-speed on more critical issues.
Is this easy? No. It takes a commitment to get to those communications regularly and repeatedly. You can’t let information pile up or it will bury you. He knows this, and uses it as a motivator.
Before electronic communication devices took over, we used to have paper in-boxes for memos, reports and mail. As a journalist, one of my daily jobs was to thumb through everything, decide what was worthwhile and what wasn’t. You made quick editorial decisions on what to keep or toss, and your ability to do this well heavily determined your success in being able to manage your workload.
I related a story to my friend about how fortunate we were back in the late-1980s and early-1990s to have a backup reporter handle our beats for us when we went on vacation. That person covered our stories and submitted them to our editor. When you returned recharged from vacation, your in-box was empty. That kept you refreshed for at least a week, daydreaming about your days camping, biking, sitting on the beach, playing golf, or body surfing in the ocean.
Imagine feeling that way today. It’s hard to.
Instead, many people don’t take vacations, or if they do, they spend time catching up on emails or other electronic messages so they aren’t overwhelmed when they return to the office. That’s bad. You don’t get away from the headaches of your day-to-day work life, you don’t relax, and your mind doesn’t disconnect to help creative ideas to surface.
You return tense. You feel stuck in the same rut.
In the shorter run, a system to keep your in-box cleaned up is a good solution for helping to run a business productively, and keep your brain clicking.
How can you keep your in-box minimized? Here are some tips:
- Delete items you won’t need in the future.
- Read the subject lines and first paragraph (if necessary) quickly, and make your decision about how worthwhile any follow-up is.
- Don’t dally.
- Trust your instincts.
Keeping your in-box empty is a success marker. It means you are on top of critical issues. It improves your mental health (and that of your employees, and by extension, your customers). It frees you up for other tasks, which are typically face-to-face communications and of more importance to your bottom line.
Making this part of your day-to-day personal operations will drive more than your bottom line. It will also free up your concentration.
That means you focus more on other tasks, and do a better job because you have the time to appropriately deal with issues that require more time. It also means that, egads, you have time to build fun into the workplace.
If you get that in-box cleared, you can play around a bit, chat with people, invent a game to engage your employees. You may find that’s the best part of staying ahead of the in-box.