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How do you deal with inbox overload? Ever since i got into David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) book and training years ago, I have been working on the inbox zero idea. If you can keep your inbox clean, you can then focus on what does come in more efficiently.
Emails just keep coming and often they are of low importance to boot.
One of the things I did with my team is move to using Slack internally instead of email, this plus using Podio for task management made our challenge to stop emailing each other. We got a real productivity lift in doing so. Slack is a team chat app with a bunch of other features including document sharing and voice to text which I use quite a lot dictating tasks to my team – no typing!
Recently I came across Followup.cc and boy, do I love this one. It helps you manage your inbox, automate followup, and never forget a email again. If something does not need to be looked at today you can say remind me tomorrow and it will do so.
If you send an email you can set Followup.cc to remind you in 3 days to follow up. I like following the method Delete, Defer or Do to manage email then taking action accordingly. With Followup.cc I am now never going to miss a followup. It is not just for sales either, you can use it to set reminders, followups, and check in with customers.
One of the worst things you can do is get stuck in your email all day. Mental fatigue can set in if you have too much going on. Going back to GTD, set aside 2 hours each per week to plan and to review what needs to be done. These five steps help; Capture / Clarify / Organize / Reflect / Engage.
Personally I schedule times to check email then get the heck out of there and go do some work.
Check out Followup.cc right now.