Our First Steps Video Series continues this week with thoughts on email. People spend so much time in email, that even minor improvements can have a big impact. Do you have standard work for how you manager your inbox? Here are some thoughts on getting a quick start.
If you can’t view the video, try this link. Some companies unfortunately block all streaming video on their firewall. If this is the case for your company, you may have to view this at home.
Do you have a First Steps idea that you’d like to share? Record a video and send it to me, and we may include it in our video series.
Jamie Flinchbaugh helps individuals and companies execute to their ideal state. 
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Even though I’ve implemented everything you talked about some time ago, I’ve never really thought about it as standard work. For most knowledge workers, email is the most frequent thing they do. It makes total sense to have standard work for it!
My thinking around email has always been in terms of 5s. The standard for the inbox is zero messages. If an email arrives, I have the following options: respond immediately, read and delete it, read and file it, OR move it to my 43 folder tickler file for later processing.
I have taken the same approach as Walter for about 2 years now. It is/was working fine. Recently though I have noticed that when I am working at my desk, I try to handle each e-mail as single piece flow. One comes in and it get handled.
This is one case where batching seems to work better. I have read studies in the past stating it takes a person about 20-25 minutes to fully re-engage in an activity when their concentration is broken, like reading an e-mail that just came in. I am working on shutting my email down so I don’t know if any came in or not until I check it. I am adding “check email” to my standard work at certain points through out the day.
I have found it more calming to not have to worry about email all the time.
The ‘Rules Function’ tip is golden. Inbox triage is especially useful when you are on the road and want to filter emails coming into your smart phone.
I have a different way of organizing emails after I have addressed them. Rather than using a large number of folders to organize content, I just move everything to one big OLDMAIL folder. I have found that the new indexing desktop search tools (Google and MS both have them) work great at finding exactly what I am looking for, and I’m saved the effort of trying to determine the best place to file something. This technique also takes care of all sent mail as long as you make sure your search tool indexes that folder as well.
Thanks Jamie…
Thank you everyone for your comments.
Matt, in terms of one piece flow, you have to think about this in terms of your work. If you were in account management and responding to email inquiries was your job, doing one piece flow would make a lot of sense. But if your job is not just email, then interrupting one set of tasks to respond to an email is an interruption, which reduces your overall productivity. I recommend turning off the auto-receive altogether. Manually check for new email when you are a point that you are ready to do that work.