Dealing with Email Part 2
Mike Vardy
Lessons
The Importance of Structure
40:17 2The Importance of Structure Part 2
35:23 3Focusing on Task
45:56 4Focusing on Task Part 2
25:15 5Going Beyond Simple To-Do List
40:46 6Going Beyond Simple To-Do List Part 2
38:51 7How to Use a Calendar Effectively
44:12How to Use Calendar Effectively Part 2
24:21 9Time Management Struggles
40:08 10Time Management Struggles Part 2
36:33 11Building a Trustworthy Workflow
41:26 12Building a Trustworthly Workflow Part 2
24:35 13Power of Contexts
45:29 14The Power of Contexts Part 2
24:33 15Dealing with Email
47:58 16Dealing with Email Part 2
48:13 17Introduction & Idea Execution
19:00 18The Idea Criteria with Q&A
38:08 19Idea Management
21:32 20The Strikethrough System
35:09 21Powerful Paper-Based Strategies
25:01 22Sticking with the System
40:34 23Workflow Q&A & Apps Discussion
28:44 24Course Recap & Q&A
20:41 25Contexts
20:59 26Email Best Practices
20:05 27Final Time Management Tips
23:48Lesson Info
Dealing with Email Part 2
Here's a question from carriages sento she asked how you organize your text messages I know and for me personally I use google voice and that puts text messages into gmail on a kind of blurs that line and I know there are a lot of aps out there that emerging all of the communications so to these tips apply to text messages how do you deal with that I keep those things separate okay I keep them completely separate I have google voice I have not used it to ford it to gmail because that's a phone call to me that's how I treat it right and I know you can and know we had that yesterday which is I think great but I don't do that I keep each communication platform completely separate so twitter dmz they come from my twitter application um I get notified from twitter if it's a twitter d m and I will I will respond if I decide I'm going to respond I don't get the mentions I don't get anything else I don't get a you know I get the dmz because that's important so I've mitigated that to the point ...
where it's like hey I only get direct messages from twitter and that's a way that people can reach me pretty quickly text messages they're in my message for me or their messages dot upper whatever you want to use so that's what I've been using their same with skype right so those that's how I used that stuff but each one of those states kind of separate because email is already big enough I don't want to throw anything maurin there and again email is committed to be a completely different platform for communication um valerie posed a question she said sometimes it's a group e mail and I'm waiting for others to reply when does that get forwarded or can I set it up for all following e mails with the same center subject line to get sent over a swell you're talking about in a way find are you talking about in general like I've experienced this is well you're especially with work situations where you have an e mail that's been forwarded and you're waiting on multiple people to respond to you how does that work an e mail this is this actually lends itself really nicely to the next slide this's where we're using email to manage teams and this is where we should be using you know another another sort of teamwork without email application which is what they're going with us is a sauna flows another when we're gonna get to that in a second but when I look at this this is basically like theirs if you look and it's hard to see in this slide necessarily but there's an inbox in every single round and you can have work spaces and you can invite more people to work spaces so what happens here is and this involves getting your team involved in it, which is which is again part of the challenge, right? But you get your inbox on that communication happens within there so it's communication within the team happening inside your task manager, which is great because things can still keep moving on the task or on the project and the other beauty part is that you can actually say here's our work space for our fifteen team members because the sound is free for teams of fifteen or under, but only eight need to be following this project so you can remove seven so they're not getting any unnecessary communication right? And then ten or following another task or project you get really granular with it if you want, but that that's where that kind of communication problem is starting to be solved that's where we have to start, we can't start with I'm waiting for a bunch of responses for people on email and it becomes a bit of aah sludge to get through it because there's fourteen people that have yet to respond and I've been responding no problem that's that's the solution that that is brick with people trying to bridge the gap with right now and asana and also flow, which is another which I mentioned and begin hybrid task manager remember I talked about that yesterday the hybrid task mentor so this is not just for team or for solo but now it's also for communication but instead of it being solely communication where we're trying to throw tasks into it it's a task manager we're trying to bring that communication into it so we can bridge that gap of it. There was one follow up question in regards to the sauna is there a way to make sure messages goto only specific people or does everyone on that list see all the messages? If you're what you would want to do it if you create a task you know sana you khun then specify who you want to share that task with and they'll get the communications on it so there's there's a lot of different settings that you can set up and they're not that difficult literally you see a picture of the person you're like okay click click click you can remove them it's very simple they also color coding in a song which a lot of people like now too so yes you can really you can really say you know I only want person a and b to get this uh versus I want the whole team to get it you're gonna ask something? What was it a better question okay, um like I could just say for example, it's a project that the team are fifteen people ten are working on it and tow our project managers and they might need to have a separate communication among themselves doesn't allow that yeah, you could well that that'd be an instance where you'd say okay here's the project here's the ten people that are doing it and then you have, like the the separate communication that would be like supervisory duties or whatever and you create that task and that you're proud that that kind of khun fall into it, right? So if you got the whole project listed and you've got a specific task that is only assigned to those two supervisors so let's use an example uh client client be photo portfolio right? And you're all working on it but then there's one area where it's like supervise this process you can remove everybody else from that task and that's where that communication can take place it's like a sub tasco the project it's well it's a task project remember I don't like stuff yeah, but it's a task within the project it's a task only being followed or shared by by those two or however many individuals excellent so that that to me is the way you can bridge that gap a lot of people are like well, I know but there's emails going back and forth you do that email dance absolutely asana and flow services like that can help bridge that gap and bring email into task management as opposed to task management into email when you say mac, do you mean it has an application that needs done it's gotta mak klein yes okay, so any time I'm putting up here so web based macro ios and then on here where based iowa's and android now asada's mobile aps are not necessarily the best attn least in my opinion but they do have other third party apse on thie iphone or ios days won't called zatanna sojo t a and then on android it's tap santoso ta p p s a and and there was link up directly to your sauna account and then you can manage them from your mobile devices there. Although asana is working on a new mobile app and the app is not it's, not it's, not that bad it's just these other ones offer the quick capture components that we've talked about in laughter quick communications so what now? Want talk with that filter trick, right like that filter thing that people were like how do you feel their e mails? This goes back to mindset okay, so I'm gonna just flick back here real quick to, uh set boundaries here we go so back to boundaries because that's a big part of the filtering process right your reason you're putting filters on things you want to say this is where this fits this is where this doesn't this fits here this doesn't fit here uh how many of you are filtering all of your e mails and toe one email account? You have a few accounts work bus no you have two accounts have filters all going into one account or you have separate e mail accounts thank you. Separate email accounts separate e mail accounts in one male one mean okay, what you got us have like all going into one separate I do wanna count you want to count you're the only one way around it the key the best way to filter emails in terms of is to use one application with several different accounts right? So yes g and I mean I don't use web based e mail so I don't use ji I don't sit in gmail and do that because again now you've got not just the distraction of email coming in but also the internet right there and your beck and call so I I used I used like I said air mail on the mack on dispatch on iowa and what as I have separate accounts and not just personal professional and then mean or whatever I have seven email accounts and wass seven that's that may seem small to some may seem quite a bit teo to others but each of them requires a different mindset to approach. Okay, so I have my personal one now that's just my simple one that all my friends and family get and how many times you think I checked that email account once pretend once per day that's it reason I only check it once per day is because if someone really has something too important to reach out to me, the either khun text me or they can phone me alright that's, my personal one. And by the way, in these standalone aps, these native aps, you can either have it where you're looking at your inbox as a unified in box, or you could do what you should be doing and look at them is individually, uh, see your how you were halfway there. You're so close. Uh, you're so close, you want to look at these this individual in boxes, you want to look at these individual accounts, and the reason is this mindset thing I'm talking about, so my professional e mail, I have several I have my my professional e mail that isn't necessarily associated with with productivity ist so this is the one that I'm using for in the instance that I'm doing some work outside of it, anyone who has this email address and I'm very conscious about who I give, what email addresses too knows I know them very well I've got a very good relationship with them, so I know I can speak to them or email with them in a certain way that maybe I can't for others, right? So if it's your life, it's your business partner or something like that and you've been friends for a long time, maybe that's the one you use? I don't know, I'm just saying that's how I use this one, then I have the productivity ist one which is related directly to all of the productivity's stuff, but again, it's a personal one. It's mike at productivity's dot com uh, generally I have a really good relationship with these people is well within that space right within the space of productivity ist so those air like relationships that have already fostered or want to foster maura want to build up and create that personal connection in the professional round, then I have info, right? The info email, which is so critical if you've like running a brand or have a I have a business or whatnot in that that is the first line of entry for most people when they're trying to discover you and when you have that you're going to generally respond in a way that's very different than how you're going to respond, teo the people who you've known for a while maybe this person is an amazing you've been wanting wanting to deal with this client for a long time, like, oh, good, I finally landed this killer client or at least they're asking about me. I want to make sure I put you know, but I don't want to be too informal, right? So we have that email and you're using that email address and you're looking at that inn box that's the mindset you can approach it with, right? Ok, then I have sales email account, and that one is the one that normally I respond to first thing in the morning, because if someone's brought my stuff and I actually there's there's been a couple issues with my bonuses for the for the now year. Um, and so I've had, like, a snippet that says, here's, what? Sorry about this issue. Here you go, and I'm responding to it fairly quickly, which most people saying, I can't believe the response time you're so quick. Well, first off, I have a snippet so that's part of my secret sauces that I actually have a predetermined snippet, and secondly, I don't I'm using a separate e mail accounts so I can see it very quickly. And they're also still dealing with me, which which is helpful, I know a lot of people, you know, delegate their sales email accounts to someone else, and then I have one that's specific for other activities, so one I have is called writing, which is if someone wants to submit a guest post to my site, and I have a very different voice when I'm talking to that person so as you can see, I'm setting boundaries, not just within the the people who are getting the email and sending it by sending them within myself and within my application to say, hey, look, this is what this email account means to me, this is what this e mail account means to me and to be fair, the context that I've assigned these emails or in the very front part of the email writing at productivity's dot com guess what context is guess posts right info what's the context information, right? So I've added that but the beauty part about all of this is that I can look at my email accounts ago what email account do I want to deal with right now? So instead of going, I got to get through all my e mail, I can say right now I'm going to do the sales email, then I'm going to deal with the info email and you know what? I don't have the energy to deal with some of the personal stuff right now are perfect so I'm going to step away and go on to some of the other stuff that I need to deal with it gives you options it gives you a choice it informs you and it doesn't keep you in that space which is email which you don't necessarily always want to spend your time in does this before we take it to the chat room um when is this making sense to you guys? Are you guys wrapping your head around like you've got so do you when you look at your email accounts of cell do you say you know hey, this is this is how I'm going to think when I'm looking at this one and you for I guess the other question is when you're looking at e mails you process all of your accounts at once or do you say no I'm only going to deal with these two or three right now I usually try to do work more than I do personal right and with work when I work on a project I like to work for a couple of fires in my project and then check my email okay and with work though do you have like different types of like you have working now right it's just general is it is it helpful in some respect? Tio know what kind of relationship you have with the person on the other side or what elements of the work that you're gonna deal with that, or is it just it doesn't adam workers working? You're fine with just yeah, I kind of like for office work. I just have one e mail and I look at it, you know? I love outlook a lot trained so it's always running in the background just for archiving, right? And then I check web mail love would look great. Gotcha! Gotcha. Here you're one of the few I know I'm getting a clinic. I'm kidding, but I mean, jennifer, you have to you have one. You only have one right now. I want what every thing comes into one inbox. So the the danger about that, especially as maury male comes in, is that your shifting mindset, which means you're shifting focus right? Like, ok, you don't know what all you can see of the different females that are coming in. You may recognize some addresses you may not all you're doing is you're you're basically having to mind shift every single maybe you get three in a row, that air work than one that's personal, and you can't really decipher. What needing to be dealt with? You just feel like you have to deal with email. So instead of remember you said, answer emails now you might be able to say, if you start to say, hey, I've got my professional on my personal and never the twain shall meet so what they'd be like? G e mails are all minor, jimmy, all under google maps, account issues. I don't know if I want to log in and log out every time my pen, it but that's, why you that's? Why? I see I use a need of app using after it on my mac, so if your if you want to use mail dot ap it's, you don't have to log in, you save the credentials, and in that mail application, you're also not on the internet. Really, you're not in the web, you're not gonna jump to other tabs necessarily. You're focusing on the task at hand, which is email and then you can decide hey, you know what? I've got thirty emails, ten of them are personal twenty or professional. It's not personal time right now. It's not time from deal with personal stuff to deal with professional I'm gonna do with these twenty males and lied and then you can consciously leave the other ten that big ten red thing that sits on the bottom the ten on red and go all right I'll get it I'll get to those later which you haven't a step with info include like newsletters so one of my issues is I get a ton of newsletter and then like group on livingsocial deals and and then I don't read them because I just look at the headlines and then decide I don't want to deal with it and just delete them all is that like is that it? Tio unsubscribe what I've got is I've got a you can actually gino used to be able to and I think you still can we put a plus sign after personal email would go into a separate account but I actually just created a completely separate gmail account for that like, you know mike vardi eighty six at gmail or whatever right? So that way when I look at it I know what goes into because I'm very conscious about what what goes into what email account right? I made that choice and again front end work, right? I've had to set this up it's not something that just happened and the problem for a lot of people is that they've been doing it another way like you said you've got a group aunts and stuff coming in so now what your task would be if you're going to do something like this is the next group on email you get you're goingto trigger go to group on change email address to new email address down like update your email address, right? So as those e mails coming in that creates a new trigger, right? And then all the sudden you were actually processing weirdly enough to in boxes at once because what you're saying is this is all going to my personal account right now group on I don't want you to do that anymore what you send it to this one so you're clearing out your personal inbox and you're also creating anu in boxes and I will continue to sign up with my personal email but the filter would automatically forwarded I would know I would send it no, no, I don't know because when you start throwing filters and because member filter is especially female, they've changed things right? What I would say it's just create another if you're going to use a native application like male were like even like outlook created separate account completely make that your sign up account change your log in credentials yeah, I know it's like I have to go without do that for like eighteen different things, but every time you get an e mail that's from one of those do it then well how how long would it take for you to change your group on log in information? Well, not very long but I'm pretty sure I signed up to like a hundred or so ok what? But the thing is is as they come in and you can decide do I want to I still want to get these yes okay I'm going to put it under my new e mail account no I don't do I have timeto go in unsubscribe because sometimes it takes eight things to know I'll just delete it for now because those e mails coming in will act as triggers right? So that's what I've done and believe me I used my personal e mail account for all of those newsletters at one point in time or another and it just got to the point where yeah like and by identifying and having seven different email accounts I was able to go this personal ones getting filled with a whole bunch of junk I need the you know I had six times now I need this other one so I would I would I created another one and when I was creating the other one I changed my log in or I decided you know what I don't need I don't need to get dig information anymore where this doesn't apply any longer so I'm going to unsubscribe so created a new set of choices right? Does that make sense you have anything in the chat room right now yeah before we get in a specific questions I just want to do a quick run down when we asked the question how many mail accounts do you guys have because it's all over the board all right, so uh carl p has one three eighteen media has seven same as mike kelly girl has to uh carriages cinta says she has seven to ten but about three of them are just for junk mail and cookie lady also has two it's it's really great when you can start to create those because again for me the inbox ismm or the application the email application than the actual accounts that were within it so when I say check email I'm going into this application and I'm able to then go in and say all right now I get to make more choice is kind of like when you're dealing with email within the email inbox okay, what am I going to do with this? Do it delegated the for delete it when I walk into the application I could say all right, right now I want to foster some personal relationships I'm going to check my personal email you know and the numbers that the thing is that's in box that's really? What inbox that inbox zero we're talk that's what that is it's about getting the right communication was right things done I mean if you've got thirty emails in your personal inbox most the more junk who cares if you got that new email account that you've put all that junk in who cares right now it's not important it's not something you'd deal with right away but if you've got one hundred emails in your inbox and we're all going to one place or you've got one hundred emails in your professional you're like you know what I need to create clients at such and such dot com I need to create sales that such a like make those choices now set them up now and no payoff big dividends later because that will also help you not necessarily because I don't move a ton of email into my task manager's because I've done this I've been able to say you know what I mean that's right minds that right now I could deal with this right? Because the music that those contexts are applying right a sales kind of high energy that's that's gonna be the mic it might've rd dot com account I want to make sure I'm not my best for that person you know normal energy sale's info you know because I've been a maid sales used to be high energy because I had a lot I didn't have that snippet I'm like how do I make this a better how do I make this better for myself how do I get more efficient and still be effective I know I'll create a snippet and text expander I'll do that. Okay, great, there it is now I'll have to do is just type in three key struck move done gone, you know, so that's that's the kind of thing you can do when you create I mean again less email. When I talked about when I talk about task management contacts, more folders, last contact that's kind of the same thing with the male, the more I mean, I'm not saying go crazy with the amount of accounts you have, although we do have quite a few people have a lot of accounts I'm saying is make sure you have the right accounts, the right thing so you can make better choices with it so you don't feel overwhelmed because if you look at your in box and you say I have five hundred emails in my personal professional accounts, I wouldn't I would bet that there are some of them in there, they either don't need to respond to it all or need to be treated in a completely different way than some of the other ones that are in there. Were you gonna say something? How do you deal with archiving do archive locally or on the server? And every time you delete something from your inbox, is it deleted on the server too? Yeah, well, what happens is because the way the way airmail works is it's got to send an archive feature on it I highly recommend using that is that you could either send it or send an archive because if you just send something, it stays in your inbox right? Generally it stays in your inbox and a lot of these native applications, but I have send an archive so well send if I know I'm done dealing with it, I'll send an archive and actually in a lot of cases, what I've done is say it's a task and I want to let them know that I'm on it I'll do the two to the person and in a blind carbon copy on the focus or asana so that way am saying, don't worry, jamie, I'm on it and then I'm also sending it to omni focus so army focuses getting it so I'm communicating and deferring all the same time, right? And they're none the wiser I mean that's maybe the only instance where I think it's ethically property he's a blind carbon blank blank bcc at this point right is because, you know you're saying, hey, I'm going to inform basically doing is bc seeing yourself but your bc seeing yourself pc seeing yourself in the right in the right place, right? You're sending it to the right place so but I do when I archive yes it's done on the server because it's connected to a lot of these air google at business aps like it's google maps for business when I delete it I will then probably I don't do it every day but I have the empty trash set up toe delete every week or something like that so it's an automation thing saved on it gets archived on this over and deleted locally yeah yeah that's that's how I've got it set up although you can have it so it deletes it altogether but I mean there's a lot of room in gmail and there's a lot of room in these place isis so and I don't think you can get I mean I don't know google lapse I'm aged grandfather in and get you know have some of this stuff some of them you're going to pay for it this point I think for some of the google app stuff um apse for business I think it is or whatever but just create email accounts right like gmail is simple hotmail no hi it's not hotmail anymore though is that looked out comrade think of something like that there's I don't know what they've changed too but there's lots of different ones that you can use lots of different dot you know gmail or whatever you want to use that will allow you to kind of create that again, it's more structure, right? I mean you're gonna give certain people your home phone number if you in fact have a home phone number and certain people your business number right? And when your business phone rings you're gonna answer a certain way then versus your home phone so emailed to me is the same and by by keeping them separate within one localized you know in box, which is basically my email application I can say all right, where am I at? Oh, I've got forty personal emails I'll deal with that later. I'll deal with that tonight, right tonight where maybe my boundaries don't apply. Well, maybe I can e mail my mom and say, mom, why did you call me? But I am glad you learned how to use email don't get me wrong. I am glad you his e mail, but you know what I mean is that I know that by the way, I was just kidding about loving outlook. You know what the problem I've always had with outlook is that whenever I've looked at at look in an organization is they've had been forced to use it as a means to manage tasks because the folder creation as soon as folders were being able to be created there like managed everything out look out look has great callin during their email is is really great the task management component, like the two duis, are so I mean, you would have tio basically it's about as good as you know, when I said yesterday I write the three things down that I want to do first thing the next day, that's where that would probably be effective is you put it and you're like, no, not even that, but but that's where to me that's where that would be effective, and I mean, I'm not that's just the way that it's been structuring a lot of organizations I know it looks got look, dot com now they're making a lot of strides and key males is definitely helped in a lot of ways, but yeah, those those elements to me are make it a little bit more challenging, but it does have the ability to have multiple email accounts, so if you do what I have, if you if you follow some of the stuff I've suggested, it may not be a female overall may not be as painful and experience. Do we have anything else? Yeah, um, can we touch on how to manage social media and e mails coming in filtering those, um, again, the whole default thing, right? When you get facebook messages like and you have to go back in and check the boxes and then when they make a change, you have to crack it and check the boxes again. I generally don't let social media communicate with me via e mail uh, back when smartphones word is prevalent, it made a bit more sense because you didn't have like it was the only way you could really get notified, right? Because email was the trigger, but now with android apse that have, you know, facebook capabilities where it just notifies you and twitter and all that stuff, I have that happening, uh, where I will have direct messaging pop up, but I don't, and you could do that with replies and all that stuff too, like so any mentions or anything with mentions, actually, what I did and you could do it again is I have ah recipe in an application called I f t so it's I and christmas and you know, if if tio on what it does is it broke for a while, but it's been fixed is that if anyone mentions me on twitter, it then goes to through I have this recipe and then saves it toe evernote, in a notebook in a notebook called twitter mentions so any time and that to me is effect the only reason I have that set up is testimonials it's great for testimonials, right? Like, you know, hey you know or quotes that I maybe don't think are important, and someone says, hey, mike, I love that quote that and I'm like, oh, good and that's gold keep it right, but that and that's information, right? And it's a task that I've had set up, but I had automation put into place so it's, I have t t t dot com another one that is out there that has this automation process so you can have these these messages if you want, put where they maybe need to get is a pier. Zee did it right z a p I e r dot com the reason I mentioned that one is it works with the sauna, but I don't get e mail sent to me that from social media, google, plus none of that stuff, not even if I have a new follower or anything like that. Because I do have times of my task manager, where I say spent time on social media remember those light lifting days that he talked about for work, that that, to me is time I can spend engaging in a bit of social media activity, so unlike those those days worth more like lifting our administration days, but I find that if you get too many e mails via social media, unless it's your job to monitor social media for your company, in which case that's something that, again, you can apply some of the other practices that I've talked about that then they maybe have to look at it a bit differently, but the idea of social media, social right? So I'm going to get the messages, and I'm going to go in and check it every once in a while, but email, I just I don't want cluttering my inbox, right? Yeah, I have a question here about people like us who have these giant in boxes with thousand thousands of emails I think we've touched on in here. A lot of them are notifications, a lot of them are spam. Is there a way to kind of clear out that in box, all in one fell swoop? Or is this something where you have to be un subscribing to each individual email that comes in? A lot of people have declared email bankruptcy, so what they'll do is and and again in applications you can also filter you can also sort by who it comes from. So the best way to get out of that before you go, I'm going to delete every email because that's again the whole walk away and forget it, I'm done with email I'm done with this, I'm going to leave because you might delete something that you're not supposed to or you you didn't really want. Teo is sorted by who sent it to you so facebook's always sent by facebook, twitter always by twitter, that kind of thing, and then just sort that by the sender, and then just highlight thumb and delete those except for the lad, except for one of them all but one and then click on the one that you didn't delete, because in there it'll say, like change settings and go in and change settings, so delete all but one of them, and then leave one there because that's your trigger, right, just to follow up for those of us like myself guilty, um, is there a way to delete more than just what's on that page? Oh, more than well, yeah, you're gonna have the only way to do it is again to filter it by name. And if it takes over more than one page, you just you have to check them all up. You have to do that, there's no other there's, no one, a real way to do it and, yes, emails painful there's that that makes it very painful. Um e guess that the the analogy I could use this you know, if you're going, you're not only gonna walk into a wall so many times for you know I shouldn't walk into that so I think that's where it comes into play or it's like, all right, you know what? I'm not gonna I had to delete three hundred twitter notifications I'm not going I don't want anymore right? Like it becomes that and the other the other option is just to say, you know what? Let him go markham is red archiving or whatever and just move on and just deal with the with the un red stuff, but ideally and I'm just whittle away at it over time if you want like there's no it's not going to cure on for everybody that's out there that's listening or here and you're gonna it's gonna be it's gonna be the one pain point it's going to be constant pain point because it's not just your pain point it's the pain point of people who are sending you e mails that say, you know well, no, I'm just going to send you an email we'll know when he just text me that you know, or I want to find how things were going well, I'm at the desk next door where I'm down the hall, right this is all about that member I talked yesterday about the costco ability where the one guy that my one warehouse manager said we're not letting people in until eleven o'clock versus ten o'clock and we train them and with a lot of anger and a lot of friction but eventually we had more people that were cooperating them weren't and we had the one person the chat room today was vanessa right vanessa fall who said she set up her auto respond er in a way that was was courteous and wass you know, concise but also very practical and said look I want to be able to provide the best for you here's what I've got going on and you could put that in a way find or or even in your own I mean auto responders I see all the time that air set up that say I won't be in the office until later like the out of office auto replies those air those air fine um but I mean in a situation like that you can say look here's here's why the respect I'm respecting my boundaries I hope you'll respect them too that kind of thing that's that those air those air critical it's going to be hard to teo train people how to do this but we're all learning how to deal with email properly at this point and there are tools being built that air hopefully helping us do that um but I I'm not going, I can't guarantee it, but if you spend time in your inbox working to find a way to get out of it, setting up those those separate e mail accounts, you know, turning off those notifications, you know, those kind of efforts having having seek multiple signatures for those accounts that you can tell which one belongs to which going in with a different mindset, those kind of like if you approach it that way, then you're going to actually be able to deal with it more efficiently and effectively, as opposed to just looking at it as something that's sucking away your time. And if you don't want to check a second thing in the morning and you want to check it first thing, just be prepared that you may end up not I'll be there may not be a second thing. There may not be a second thing. It may be the only thing you end up doing right and email for a lot of us is not the work it leads to the work, but it's, not the work. Any other questions in the chat room or anything want to discuss before we wrap up because I want you guys to go home and empty your in box. Do you have it? You guys uh got anything or any do you have email strategies that you kind of use? I've talked about several of mine but do you do you have any that you want to share? I mean that's a good that's a good strategy I like that strategy I'm gonna have to top that you have a strategy? Um well, it's the wrong strategy obviously because I think you're being kind of like that's managing but I use the labels as well for, um, like certain colors will mean the same thing that you mentioned earlier. I have to answer that very quickly or in seventy two hours or sometime in the future where it can be to keep track of the topics like if it's something about an environmental issue I keep taking it always with green, so when I need some emails I'm looking for an email so you see, you're adding contacts to the yeah, so there's nothing wrong with that. All right, thank you know that's good that's good. Because there's a lot of stuff's gonna take it's going to be small steps, right? So if you're if you're not ready to go if you're going, I like I can't I hear you're saying and you're crazy and I can't or you're not crazy, but I'm not ready yet that's I mean you said things I need to reply to maybe change that because that's an urgency thing right that's the thing that probably scares you off but again maybe again those context that I talked about make them universal so those green those tags those things you're using make them more universal make them apply more and really when I use separate e mail accounts all I'm doing is I've got the email accounts or separate contexts that's all they really that's how I have identified them the uniform thing that you talked about earlier jamie I put on a different uniform every time I look at it yeah it's not something that's automatic it needs to be nurtured but you've already seen you already got a habit so don't wholesale give it up especially after what we talked about during a break right now you start giving that stuff up and try to focus on other things than what you're focusing on nothing at all yeah so you've got that habit like this is working for me tweak it but you know what? Red doesn't mean urgent red means um you know uh this gets me hot this makes me and you know I mean whatever you need to do tow make it so that you doesn't stay in that that perpetual state of you know, just re circulating in that embark when you when you forward these emails to ever know, does it not crowd ever know too much because all these thousands of emails all the time well again if you're forging on ly if your forwarding only tasks to have run out right which again I wouldn't recommend your forwarding information to ever know what I mean what you're forgetting is mean it's emails are so small right? Like you're not very large you're not going to be overburdening it especially when you start to put it in the prize if you put it all in one notebook yeah I mean when you're looking at your notebook uh when you said you were going through the notebook there was a lot in there right? And it was tough to party took you an hour to parse it out write a couple hours our two that an hour, right? So if you're trying to put everything in one spot yeah right? But you're gonna be processing that in boxes? Well you're going to say ok, what is this? Oh, this has to do with this project. Okay, I'm gonna sign in this context is going to go into this notebook done the evil then they got fewer notes in there it's not you, but if you start putting and when you're dealing with tasks in a lot of cases when your tasks are done you put him in omni focus asana even ever note if you want when you're done them you can either you could decide who I want to check it off to show that it's done or do I want to get the note I want to get it out of there yeah don't delete it because you could do that if you really want I think the kneading might be beneficial because one of the things that I always need is toe call back and find something after several months right? And when I search for something if it if it's one hundred twenty uh not that match the same tag then I will need another one of your search remember you're using no books to write so notebooks gonna have specific projects in mind so if you're saying oh this is proper project that I did in november of two thousand thirteen this is the, uh, cliff geary pro jacked or whatever I'm gonna go look in that notebook and I'm gonna look for that tag in that notebook then you're not going to be you're not going to be searching his deep so remember it's all that information right? What project is this? Oh, I created a notebook for it. Okay, what tagged away useful? Yeah always used this tagger it's just I don't remember those details well but that's that's the beginning process right that's the capture process the cat I mean you know who the email is from or what it's about right that's informally right generally mean if you're right and then you know what it pertains to you know like what you know this is to do with being a better editor or whatever okay, great and you may not but at least you least know what you least you know what project it's in what notebook it might end up being so those are the steps, right? Those are the you're adding value writing information the more information you have to go on it's like solving a crime right? We're playing the game clue replay the game clue and like, okay, I eliminated the dining room but I know colonel mustard it couldn't have been it like you're starting to eliminate how's things that's what you're doing has ever not have these att one such no, we absolutely in fact ever know if you're looking if I wanted to type in boundaries and ever know right now it would find this slide and this slide yeah it's text but it's based in aquino right? So it can find that stuff so you could what I would do is I know when I was trying to get my glasses I went I was on a bus and I'm like, oh look, clearly contacts, which is the equivalent of coastal contacts here? Yeah nothing's the same up there way we're all different uh I took a picture of the bus abba advisement and I wasn't ready to buy them yet, but when I needed my glasses I'm like, oh yeah, it was a captures piece of information I know I need new contacts for new glasses I just typed in the word glasses and every note there is picture like that's the number because they didn't write down the number yeah, all I did was take the picture right? So it's, those little nuggets because I didn't need to remember the number that because it was like a one, eight hundred number and we can only remain three I think is the most I can remember fact, at a conference on my iphone ran out of juice and we're trying to call my wife to pick me up, but I could not remember phone number because I don't have to remember it anymore because it's in the it's in the phone, right? So in this case, I like I had that information close at hand so that so all you need to those you just need to figure out those triggers right on the trigger will be either project or context and by having both you at least have more than one trigger, which gives you a better chance of being able to figure out where it's supposed to go or what you're supposed to find anyone else I'm a bit concerned about how much space air mail would use on your mac book air if you have like only one twenty eight gay for downloading every male again into refusing your web mail plan well, it I can what I'll do is, uh on my mac um actually have ah, the ability for it I think airmail has this where you could dump that that follow you figure out where those files are in dump them if you want, but I also sink him upto web mail as well, so gmail has that like it sze loaded locally but also loaded like it's a still in the server I don't know if you can choose to make it so it doesn't store locally as well mail dot app stores it locally and so does post put another email application that's worth looking at for anybody out there that are yu guys that used both windows and and mac is called post box and it's by the people who made a thunderbird to the mozilla people it has ever known integration built in which is kind of cool bye and it looks it's very it's a very but it's a scaleable email application when I say scaleable it may look really complex at first it's not it's just it's got it looks like mail dot ap essentially in a lot of ways, so I would look at something like that um maybe that could maybe manage it a little bit better. Plus, you've got universality again with the app right now because they're using on a windows machine. No one knows, okay, but if you are, I know you're like, no, no, not a chance forget, but if you're somebody who has a mac a home and we know that at the office, then he gives you again like we talked about before, uh, with the scanning of paperless stuff, right? Why have more aps when you've got if you could lower the learning curve a bit and remove that barrier, why not have that? And that's something that you always want to consider right is, you know, hey, how do I how do I make this work for me? Which is a lot of the reason why people stick with their email application is their task manager because they go, I don't understand why I need a second inbox or third in box. Well, you know how many emails air in your in box there's this may that's why you need a second third box, that's too many that's just too many, um, the the that's not where they're supposed to be s o yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I don't get it with their mail I get a lot of email but it's not it doesn't I haven't had a bobby down I've got a mac I've got a macbook air um I think I have a two fifty six though, so maybe that's part of it? I'm sure yeah, I guess if have smaller size you're concerned with saving your hard drive space and not downloading man on it that's a very good point and I mean especially to get a lot of email, especially to get a lot of mail email is an email is one of those tricky ones where, you know you really need teo it's when we're going to spend some time with that's why for me and initially it was a high energy kind of thing I'm like how do I get out of this? This thing that doesn't always have my best interests at heart and it always doesn't have the best interest of the sender is hard at heart as well and further to that. How do I tell that centre than it does always have their best interests at heart? But if you wrap your head around like just these little simple things that I mentioned and yet taking your existing system and kind of tweaking it so that it is more concluded, you know, having separate emails take itjust going in making that want, you know what I'm going to create one other email right now that's for this junk mail stuff, and I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna slowly do this or I will one subscribed for my facebook stuff and there's seven hundred notifications in there, but I'm going to do it and then I'll wait a month and do it for twitter and I mean it's all about piecemeal ing it together. So, uh, before we wrap up just going over, we talked about today, uh, we talked with building award flow, taking the paper and the analog and marrying them together as best we can, you know, and it like I've said paper is great for the the gateway stuff it's great for and you can now start to apply context to it. I'm going to talk more about that tomorrow. Um, but digital, I mean, digital is great for that long term retention kind of stuff, right? And you have some stuff you want to keep on paper. Brooks had some great points spent some time in a chat room very, very happy about that power of contexts start talking, context and tagging have the universality across the board, if you can, what means and adds value to your task more meaning you've got yes, I just thought of something you mentioned other activities what kinds of you know, any mail for the email account interacted with that mean crappy sh lobbies could that be no when I say when I say other activities and I think I was talking about the accounts at that point my accounts are like so writing at productivity's dot com is another activity that I I I don't get a lot of email in there okay? So it's a few added and while there right another portal another aspect to it another another area because I mean I don't get a lot of requests for guest post but I might so I'd rather do that front and work now then then wait till later because I remember when I didn't do the front and work and all of a sudden I've got all these group on applications that I'm sitting in my personal life box right um power can't you jamie did you have something or I just wanted to say you know it's very excellent idea of having different emails because it's kind of like identify that particular email for seven purposes so like I just recently got an email count I used to f u who all the time hey oil and et cetera I'm trying to say so I do this is just really for something I'm testing out like professional basis so kind off like I find a distinction so when I go there I know this is my objective and he clearly defines it and you know, from there I can't hang on to things around him creaking now tryingto see how I can put things that actually can tire too, you know, like instead of like spending like maybe three hours sitting flat to do that I cannot free away sometime, you know? Absolutely and that's one of the things again, those email accounts honestly, like we talked about contacts that's what they are I mean they're to a certain extent that's what they are if you have a personal professional mail account, you're shifting that's the shifting thing right? You try to answer them all at once you put it on one inbox than trying to balance and and you're not focusing on the necessarily the task at hand or the the area of focus that you should be working on the email management wanna one which, you know is it's a tricky one, but it's one that I think we need to look at it's that email is meant for communication and if we can implement and add tasks to the equation, we should do it the other way around. We should we should have the task manager bring email into it not the other way around and if you've got a system, I'm not saying abandoned at wholesale, but I'm saying try to move away from it because once you open email you're opening yourself up to the world. You're opening yourself up to all outside distractions, and that can be a really slippery slope. And it can really affect your time in task management.
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
Eve
Mike's class was chock full of useful information on streamlining a to do list, digitally and by hand. His process seems pretty robust, and extremely well thought out, to provide maximum efficiency and success with the least amount of effort. Granted there is a learning curve, and one must practice to become proficient and use it effectively, but if you are willing to put in the effort there is a major positive impact on productivity. He goes through his favorite apps (he apparently consults with app developers) and why, which was exactly what I needed at the time. Some of his 2nd choice apps may now surpass the others, but he explains clears how to pick the best app for you. I'm a small business owner and I found the class to be quite helpful. Thanks Mike.
Pavel Voronenko
Very interesting class! I would recommend recording it as it based on apps' solutions and since 2013/2014 there are a lot of changes. Al least maybe some wrap-up session. Well done, Mike Vardy and Creative Live team! Jan. 04, 2021
Cathy
Really loved this class. Real life examples from the audience made it easy to understand and see how the advice can apply to my way of managing tasks. I have now a clear view of the system I'm going to implement (I already started) and that I can trust. Thanks a lot Mike!
Student Work
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Time Management