Multiple studies of our email addiction agree – we’re spending far too much time just managing our inboxes, and not enough getting on with our “real work”.
For some of us that’s hundreds of incoming messages a day, and as much as 2 or 3 hours every working day spent just dealing with them.
All this is a massive drain on our attention, focus and energy, and a major barrier to being productive.
As well handling our own bulging inboxes, how we each write the emails we send out is a major factor in the effectiveness of team communication and productivity.
Making sure we attend to a few basic points of email etiquette is a good place to start.
For Think Productive’s favourite email etiquette tips, click Here for a PDF of our recent article in NAHPA magazine.
If you’re looking for GTD training, our ‘How to Get Things Done’ workshops offer the basics on how to implement the ideas from David Allen’s GTD book, along with the best theory, tips and tricks from the likes of Peter Drucker, Tim Ferriss and many more! It’s available in-house to your company or also through our public workshops across the UK.
Time Management Training has changed! Click here to find out about our productivity-focussed Time management workshops, email training and facilitation training.
Think Productive have teamed up with Train to Gain to offer charities a grant to access our “Getting Your Inbox to Zero” in-house workshop for FREE*!
For more information on the grant download the PDF by clicking here
For more information about our “Getting Your Inbox to Zero” workshop click here
*To get 15 delegates onto “Getting Your Inbox to Zero” for Free (Usual price £1000) place three people on the “How to Get Things Done” public workshop for £500 (Usual price £600)
The total package would usually cost £1600 but with the grant you would pay a total of £500 which includes three delegate on the “How to Get Things Done” public workshop and upto 15 delegates on the “Getting Your Inbox to Zero” In-house workshop.
On our time management worshops we often talk about the issue of ‘connectivity vs productivity
’: whilst we should focus on being productive we’re often simply addicted to being connected, in the loop and plugged in. In our Email Etiquette workshop, we also talk about the Blackberry (‘Crackberry’) abuse that goes on in organisations and help people to change these bad habits. If I go away it’s usually for about a month so it’s quite normal for me to take a few bits of work with me and stay relatively in the loop but it’s also good to completely disconnect (with no exceptions!) so that you can stop thinking about work, take time to reflect and experience a change of pace. I’m happy to report that nothing ‘blew up’ during my week away, and if you’re tempted to take the laptop with you or keep your blackberry turned on whilst you’re away on your hols, here’s the view from the other side – I hope it changes your mind!
Also, if you’re worried about coming back to hundreds of emails, fear not! Our ‘Getting Your Inbox to ZeroEmail workshop will coach you to do exactly that in just 3 hours! Email us for more details.
One of the things we come across a lot on our training, particularly around email, is the issue of ‘connectivity addiction’: Blackberrys and other mobile email devices are set up in such a way to encourage an addiction to being connected rather than an addiction to getting things done! If you’re emailing on a Sunday or at midnight and doing this regularly, or if you’re constantly stressing about being ‘in the loop’ on everything, you’ll know what we mean.
Remember, it’s bad email etiquette to be regularly expecting employees to respond to emails sent late in the evening, so particularly if you’re a senior manager or someone with a large influence over the working culture of your organisation, then beware! Our email training includes a workshop looking at ‘Email Etiquette’, where we help organisations discuss how some of the bad email practice in any organisation can effect productivity and sanity-levels. We help teams to draw up an email manifesto to develop better ground rules. It’s not your average time management training, but we can assure you it really changes things!
Probably the workshop that captures the imagination the most is ‘Getting Your Inbox to Zero’. When we’re out there talking to people about it, we get three very common questions – all of which we think you’ll like the answers to. Think Productive’s workshop hits the spot that other email training offerings just can’t get to – we make real change, by actually helping you achieve inbox zero within three hours!
Below is Merlin Mann’s original ‘Inbox Zero’ google tech talk:
Jack Butler, founder of Future Foundations is one of the most motivated and focussed people I know! Jack asked me in to talk about getting your inbox to zero, GTD and our How to Get Things Done workshop as part of their learning lunches series and I was only too happy to oblige. I also used it as an opportunity to talk to Jack about some of his own work processes: daily huddles, batching meetings and other tips and tricks that Jack uses to keep him and his team motivated, happy and on top of their game. Jack mentions the Verne Harnish daily huddle process here. We have started using that with Think Productive, and you can find out more info in his book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
