Candid Productivity Episode: Power Delete!
Buried under a pile of email with no end in sight? This one’s for you…
Welcome to the next video in my new Candid Productivity Video Series!
These are the same kinds of in-depth answers my Invaluable Coaches and I provide in my Two Day Productivity Miracle.
In this video you’re going to see the candid answers I provide when I ask people–just like you–a simple question:
“What is the biggest productivity challenge to your workday?”
In this episode you’ll meet Keith, an owner-partner and manager in an insurance agency. He told me he has so much to do that “his head just spins.” He also mentioned that he felt a bit “ADD.” Sound familiar?
His told me his biggest challenge was prioritizing his tasks, but as we drove a little deeper, we discovered a deeper cause for his feeling of inefficiency.
Thank you Dave,
It is amazing how we have repetitive tasks that we do at the start of each day that could be done more efficiently by a computer. Moving information from the email inbox to the correct folders is one. Each morning as I move the items, I have said to myself “this really is not the best use of my time, but….”
Thank you for showing how to make the moves automatic.
I would love to do the same with Excel. When I copy a page, I do not know how to copy the “page setup” options so that I do not need to set each pages setup options by hand.
I spend a lot of time hitting the send/receive button to get the latest messages. For some reason it is not automatic to receive as soon as available and Outlook seems to go to sleep. When I am in the middle of a project, I want the answers as soon as available and use email instead of the phone unless it is an emergency and I need the answers right now.
Thanks again, it is great to see actual solutions being implemented rather than reading the owners’s manual and having to recall what to do for each future situation that comes up, or not even knowing that there are solutions available yet, and therefore not searching for them.
Richard C
how did you collapse the emails by name? I’m using entourage on a mac. Thanks!
Do the following:
- Select View | Arrange By
- Select Show in Groups
- Select the field you want to sort by (in this case select From)
I only check my email at the end of the day. Any emails that require a reply, I will dictate my response into a digital recorder and either have my assistant get those out or I would use software that allowed the same thing but at the moment I was answering the message. I felt like I was being too verbose at times with the latter. I may need more help in determining which emails really can be replied to and which would be best delt with as a phone call.
Regarding emails…I even go one step further. I have setup my Outlook not to receive emails automatically when sending. That way, when I write an email and send it, I am not bombarded and distracted with incoming mail.
I only hit that receive button, to allow the outside world in, at specific slotted times in my day. This very discipline has allowed me to gain 2-3 hours a day.
I have also implemented what I call Bubble Time. Bubble Time is the discipline of blocking “uninterrupted time” every day. No phones, no emails, no interruptions. We dramatically increased our profit margin with Bubble Time. Check out how: http://www.leapzonestrategies.com/blog/2008/09/08/get-more-done-in-less-time/
Great suggestions, Isabelle. These are in harmony in harmony with principles we teach in our Two Day Productivity Miracle. (http://davecrenshaw.com/two-day/)
Thanks!