Culture and email
Graham Allcott

Graham Allcott


 

 


 

 

For Think Productive founder Graham Allcott, January has been a month of “email Friday” – only checking his inbox once a week. 

As well as reducing his distractions, Graham also found another interesting side effect of this experiment

(Find out more about Graham’s 2013 experiments here)

 

During my Email Friday experiment, something quite remarkable happened.

People I know stopped emailing me.  Some called me, some waited and emailed me the same stuff on the Thursday or Friday, some dealt with Elena and Chaz in the office and I was liberated from being ‘in the loop’ (usually unnecessarily!) and some took ownership of the issue and just got on with things (which as a business owner in the midst of expansions, is a godsend!).

Each Friday, I would open up my email inbox.  For the first couple of weeks, the volume was increasing – mainly because lots of people were returning to work after Christmas breaks.  Then in weeks three and four the volume actually dropped.  By about 20%.

Nothing stopped getting done, nothing really changed.  But the instincts of the team led everyone to trim the fat, cut out the unnecessary which always creeps in unnoticed and take more decisive action.

Often our focus around email is on ‘personal survival’ and dealing with the volume.  However, as organisations and cultures, we get the email we deserve.

So talk to your team about your collective email habits today.

It’ll be an unexpected conversation, but you have nothing to lose and so much to gain.

Good luck!

 

Like this? Try these

 Need some help? Sign up to one of our email training workshops 

Read all of Graham’s Experimentation blog posts

Bill Gates: ‘I only get 40 or 50 emails a day‘ - digitallife.today.com

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Changing your habits
Graham Allcott

Graham Allcott




 


 


 


 


Since the start of January, Think Productive founder Graham Allcott has only been accessing his emails on a Friday. 


This is part of a series of productivity experiments throughout 2013.


As we reach the end of the month – Graham explores how his email habits have changed.


 


 


In order to improve your productivity and achieve a more balanced life, you have to change your habits.  Changing your habits is harder than you think: if it was so easy, we’d all be living perfect lives right now!


What I’ve learned myself this month with my Email Friday experiment is that changing my habit has been done in 3 key stages:


1. RECOGNITION


Realising something could be better, not having a clear idea of what, but allowing myself to experiment


2. RESULTS ANALYSIS


For my email Fridays experiment, I’ve noticed my attention increasing, my volume of email going down, but also my twitching and pining for digital distractions instead of just being present, enjoying the moment or doing something more useful than sending another email.


3. RESOLVE


My resolve is to do things differently in future.  My exact plan around this may change, but here’s how it looks right now:


a. Move to 2 periods of email per week.  Whilst one has been liberating, there have also been consequences.  Whereas two periods a week will allow my response rate to people to always be no longer than 2 days, which I’m comfortable with.


b. I will NOT return to having email on my phone.  I am writing this blog post on a train journey with no access to email.  This blog post and many other useful bits of work would never have happened if I had email scanning to fall back on.  Email processing is much quicker and more productive for me on a computer than on a phone.


c. I will pick up the phone more often.  This has been a surprising lesson for me: how out of the habit of picking up the phone I – and most of the rest of the world! – has become!  The phone brings a human connection often missed by email, and whilst may take a few moments longer than an email, still often produces better results.


 


There are a few other changes I’m making too, but the point is this: extremities bring learning which in turn brings change.  And changing your habits – whilst tough – is both possible and liberating.


 




 


Like this? Try these


Read all of Graham’s Experimentation blog posts


Inspired to tackle your inbox? Try some of our email training 


Five “good habits” you need to unlearn - lifehacker.com


Emails piling up? It’s time to ‘be ruthless‘ - triblive.com


 



				
				
				

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Sharon Dale
Sharon Dale

 


Sharon Dale is our Productivity Ninja, based in the north of England. 


She will be hosting our How to Get Things Done public workshop in Halifax on 31st January


Book your place here (not in Halifax? Click here to see our other How To Get Things Done training)


In this post she explains how she reclaimed time in her busy schedule, by unsubscribing to a host of email newsletters and mailshots. 


 


 


Since New Year’s Day I have been doing some clearing out.


This is customary for me. Each year I feel the need to make some changes (read improvements) at this time of year.


This year I realised that there are lots of newsletters and marketing email’s which I have subscribed to over time but am no longer reading. What I noticed is that each time I go into my mailbox I automatically delete these and whilst this is not taking up a lot of time, sometimes it steals more attention than it should.


Inbox zero - graphic showing how an email inbox can be emptyI was reminded this week that there are 168 hours in a week, that is all and it is impossible to create more time. All we can do is make sure that we are giving our attention to the right things.


So I decided it was time to get rid of these attention grabbing, mainly marketing emails about old interests for good. I have gone against type and tried not to worry about recording anything and decided to use my admittedly poor memory and deal with any laggards later on.


Some of these emails are very simple to unsubscribe from, you click on a link at the end of the message and reach a page which generally thanks you for your interest and tells you that you have successfully unsubscribed.


Some ask if you are sure and you have to press a button or another link (do not back out now – press the button!), and yet others require you to remember a login and password that you set up some time ago and this turns into a multiple action project. These are the ones I will deal with, one at a time, probably as part of a post weekly review tidy.


I already feel better; for a few seconds work each time I am incrementally reducing my inbox clutter.


If you would like to learn more about managing your attention and getting things done, get along to my How to Get Things Done workshop in Halifax on Friday (31st Jan 2013)


 


Like this? Try these


 Need some help? Sign up to one of our email training workshops 


 Lost all your emails? what’s the worst that could happen? | thinkproductive.co.uk 


Rethink Your Email in 3 Steps | thinkproductive.co.uk 


Swizzle Turns All Your Email Newsletters Into a Weekly Digest 


 


 

				
				
				

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Bristol Public Workshop Biscuits

					

				

			

			

				

					

Graham Allcott
Graham Allcott

 
Biscuits  - like the ones found at a Think Productive Email Training Workshop
IMAGE BY PHIL WOOD PHOTO


This is just a quick post to highlight the fabulous biscuits at the Think Productive public workshop in Bristol.


The next available date is ‘Getting Your Inbox to Zero’ with Lee Cottier on Thursday 6th December (book here).


The workshop will clear your inbox, your mind and your soul in just three hours, using only our tried and tested ninja skills; but what I really want to draw your attention to is the biscuits. If you go for anything, go for the tea break. Lee takes his biscuits very seriously.


And if you do get to experience tea with Lee, please use the experience to remind yourself that whenever possible you should try to choose the nice biscuits.


We aren’t all lucky enough to love our work. Even fewer people enjoy each and every aspect of their job. Even here at Think Productive HQ we sometimes have to buckle down and do the worst first  so it’s important to take charge of the things that you can change.


That’s what ‘Getting Your Inbox to Zero’ is about, maximising email management and taking ownership of what you can control, so that you can deal with what you can’t with a skip in your step. You may not have a choice about having only seventeen and a half minutes for lunch, but you can choose to use it to take a quick walk or call your Mum or read a chapter from that book you’ve been lugging around for the past six months. You can slump at your desk and choose to have a rich tea lunch break or you can take care of yourself with a double chocolate chip lunch break.


That’s the other thing about ‘Getting Your Inbox to Zero’, it creates more time in your life, time you didn’t know you had, time you can use to look after yourself. Lee knows this. That’s why he’s got the time to make sure that when you arrive at a Bristol Public workshop, there are some really nice biscuits.

				
				
				

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