Email Hack... the good kind.

We all get a ton of emails every day.  Friends, family, customers, co-workers, vendors, e-marketers, SPAM, etc.  Email has become the most used and relied on form of communication.  And, everyone that sends an email expects that the person they sent it to received it and read it immediately.  Unfortunately email is an imperfect tool.  Emails can get caught in SPAM filters, the receiving person can be busy and not checking their emails, there can be multiple recipients and it can be unclear who is being asked to do what. Or, an email can just get lost in an unruly inbox. We truly have a love/hate relationship with it.

I was recently reminded of a situation that happened a while ago. I was CC'ed on an email from a tutor we use for my son that was sent to my wife.  The tutor said that she had sent multiple invoices to her, had not received payment in a couple of months, and was wondering if the email invoice was caught in a SPAM filter or if she should send the invoice via snail mail.  

This was not a SPAM problem.  My wife had over 65,000 UNREAD emails in her inbox.  The total email in her inbox was over 750,000!  It’s no wonder the invoice wasn’t paid….she never saw it!  It got lost in her inbox!  I, on the other hand, manage my inbox to zero emails. I saw the tutor’s email, sent a check to her, and responded to her within 10 minutes – she called me an email ninja!

So, how many emails are in your inbox?  Here are some quick fixes to help you manage the unmanageable:

1. State your expectations clearly.  What you need, when you need it by, and who you need it from (this is especially important when there are multiple recipients on the email).  Highlighting, underlining and bolding are great tools to use to draw attention to these details or to different people you need things from in a single email.

2. Make sure to use the TO: and CC: fields properly.  TO: is used for someone that you need a response or action from.  CC: is for someone you just want to receive and be in the loop on the information.  Please don’t put someone in the CC: field if you need them to do something – it just creates confusion.

3. Help minimize email overload.  Not only is it important to make sure to include everyone that needs to be in the know on an email, but it its equally important to know when not to. And STOP RELPYING TO ALL. I’ll say this again. Don’t reply to all when the answer is just for the person that sent it.

4. Touch emails in your inbox only once. When I read an email inbox, I do one of a couple things that all end with the email being removed from my inbox. If it requires an action of me, I either act on it immediately and then archive or delete it, or move it to a folder to act on later. If no action is needed, I read it and then archive or delete it.

5. Get organized. I have a simple folder structure - ATTENTION, HOLD, and ARCHIVE. Attention is for emails I cannot act on now but need to take an action on. Hold if for items I need to quickly reference or want to read later or am waiting for a follow up from other on. Archive is for anything else I want to save and not delete (the search functions are so good that I don’t create topic-centric folders to save emails).

6. Rules, rules, rules. I love inbox rules. I can move items that I am CC:’d on or newsletters I get to my HOLD folder to read at my leisure. I can color code emails from certain people to make them stand out.

7. If you have to follow up, flag it! Outlook and other email clients have features that allow you to flag an email for follow up. Some, like outlook, even let you turn the email into a task and set a due date.

“I get mail; therefore I am.” - Scott Adams (cartoonist, creator of Dilbert)

“How to write a good email: 1. Write your email. 2. Delete most of it. 3. Send.” - Dan Munz

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Passover Lessons

For most people, “Passover” brings on images of The Ten Commandments; the version with Charlton Heston as Moses and Yule Brenner as Pharaoh Ramses   For those unfamiliar with it, the Passover Seder is a ritual meal involving the retelling of the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  Passover is a big traditional celebration for my family.  We typically have 30-40 people for the Seder.  For the last few years, my wife and I have been hosting this for our family, and I have been leading us through the telling of the story. As I prepare for this year,  I find myself thinking about the meaning of Passover beyond the ritual.  There are some interesting lessons to be found:

Learn how to ask.  A central part of the Seder ritual is the asking of the 4 questions which all start – "why is this night different than all other nights?”  Questions are the primary method of how the story is taught.  What’s the take-a-way?  Most great achievements in life begin with a question.  Be curious.  Speak up.  Ask!

Embrace challenges.  The story of the Exodus is filled with recounting the suffering and hardships the Israelites faced and overcame.  The lesson?  We should never be afraid of challenges and mistakes, as long as we remember them – how they transformed us, how they moved us, how they taught us.  Embrace challenges.  Learn from them.  Remember them.

Take action.  A central image of Passover is Matzah, the unleavened bread we eat.  Thinking and preparing for change are important steps but what matters in the end is following through with our actions.  Matzah teaches us the importance of acting quickly when we know something is the right thing to do.  We didn't wait for the bread to rise.  Instead we grabbed the Matzah and ran.  Take action whenever you can and as soon as you can.  Move… do… run towards your goal.

Remember what we have in common.  We are directed to retell the story of Passover so we never forget.  To remember our common heritage, our core value of freedom.  To bind us together and keep our vision constant over the millennia.  Having and knowing your core values - personal, family and business - does this.

“So let it be written, so let it be done!” - Yule Brenner as Pharaoh Ramses II in The Ten Commandments

“The power to question is the basis of all human progress.” - Indira Gandhi

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Sound Bites... A different way to read.

I love to read. Always have. I think I got that from my grandmother and dad. They always had a book in their hands. Didn’t matter what the book was (or if it was one you were in the middle reading). I go through at least 200 books a year. I love a good story. Get completely lost in them. Fiction. Science Fiction. Fantasy.

I have always struggled, though, getting through business and self-improvement books. For the most part they are so dry and boring. The messages are good, but the delivery is like a textbook. No hook. No story. With all the reading I have done, I have NEVER read one of these books all the way through. For the longest time, I felt guilty about that. Like I was less for not being able to make myself do that. Especially since I love learning.

One day, while watching the news, I had an epiphany. I didn’t have to read a book from front to back to hear the message and get the benefit. I could do what the news did… sound bites! All throughout high school and college, I never read a text book or an assigned reading book from cover to cover. I skimmed and highlighted it for what I thought was important. And for the most part that worked great!

“So, Adam, how the heck do you do this?” I’ll tell you! It’s simple. Instead of as a single cohesive piece of work, I treat a 300-page business book as 300 one-page newsletters with usable ideas in each that can be read independently, partially or even out of sequence.

I have hundreds of business and self-help books in my library. Every day I grab one whose title or cover catch my eye. Open it to a random page. Read that page (maybe two or maybe only half). And, walk away with one or two ideas… (or not). Then repeat with a different book the next day! That’s it.

The underlying key to understanding this is that a business or self-help book is only as valuable to you as what you do with the information in it. If I get one good idea today that I can do something with of value to me, then the book was immensely valuable to me. Even if I only read ONE PAGE OF IT!

BTW - Here is a list of my favorite business books (these all actually read like stories):

• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

• Make the Noise Go Away by Larry G. Linne

• Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson

• Get a Grip by Gino Wiccman

"Books can be dangerous.  The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life’.”  - Helen Exley

“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.” - Brian Herbert

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