A Summary of the Revolutionary ‘Triage’ Process for Managing Your Email
These days we have far too much going on in our work and personal lives to manage everything with just our mind or our memory. As a result, we need tools to help us manage and keep track of everything that requires our attention, energy and effort.
In the past, we’ve had a range of paper-based productivity tools to help us manage all this - notebooks, to-do lists, diaries etc. However, as much of our work is now generated electronically, and the majority of this via email, it makes sense to use a range of electronic tools.
For most of us, this email tool is either MS Outlook or Google Gmail. And while so many of us are familiar with our version of email software, we tend to only use a small percentage of its capacity - there is so much more power at our fingertips to better manage our email and our workload, but most of us are only vaguely aware of its true potential.
The core challenge lies in creating a system that manages not just WHAT and WHERE information is stored, but WHEN it needs attention.
Here is a proven 3 step approach to effective email management:
Step 1: Triage your inbox (sift/sort/prioritise)
This initial quick pass uses the 4D methodology. Every time you touch an email, make one of the following 4 decisions;
Delete - remove unnecessary emails
Deal with it - immediately handle items that will take less than 2 minutes for the very next action
Delegate - forward to someone else for the next action, with appropriate request or instruction
Decide – For email you don’t have the time, energy or resources to address right now, capture the priority, next action, and due date when you will come back to them for deeper attention
This triage process should be consistent, working through emails from top to bottom, one at a time, rather than cherry-picking. This step employs relatively shallow thinking and quick decision-making, aiming to quickly process approximately 60-70% of incoming emails.
The key is to customize your email software to capture the results of your thinking and decision-making in the Triage process and show those messages requiring future action grouped together by date and sorted by priority.
Step 2: Treatment (Workload Planning)
This deeper phase handles the remaining 30-40% of emails requiring more attention. The approach categorises tasks by their time requirements, as follows
Under 2 minutes - execute immediately, as per the 2 minute rule above
2-15 minutes - schedule a dedicated block of time in the calendar to address this email
Over 15 minutes - convert the email into a scheduled appointment time in the calendar
A crucial aspect is scheduling specific time blocks for email processing, treating it as importantly as other meetings. This transforms email management from reactive to proactive, preventing the common habit of checking emails 15+ times daily and re-reading the same emails multiple times.
Step 3: Reading
The final step deals with informational emails that require no response or action but are things you wish to be aware of (newsletters, reports, updates, subscriptions etc). These should be automatically filtered to a separate folder for batch reading at a scheduled time(s).
This reading time involves a "passive" rather than "active" mindset when processing such content.
The following ‘cheat sheet’ summarises this process:
Would you like to have a discovery call with me to determine how we can work together to manage your emails?
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