hey what's going on
welcome to the Doug show in this episode
we are going to talk about email
productivity tips this is the second in
the series on productivity and like the
last episode which was on project
management my wife Elizabeth is joining
me for this conversation
in fact this episode is a sort of a
rebroadcast my wife and I had a podcast
called survived the 9:00 to 5:00 and we
talked about you know kind of corporate
and job-related stuff as you could
imagine with a name like that so anyway
that's what this episode is from and
we're gonna send it over we being you
know me right now and you we're gonna
send it over to that discussion and
afterwards I'm going to sort of talk
about some current email productivity
things that I am working with right now
so and it kind of it all comes together
and a quick reminder there are two more
episodes in our productivity series the
third in the series is going to be on
deep work inspired by the Cal Newport
book called deep work and the fourth in
this series will be on prioritizing and
figuring out what to work on so let's
send it over to the email productivity
discussion now
[Music]
I'm Elizabeth and I'm Doug and I
actually have a quick funny story about
email I remember when we had
[Music]
inter-school email when I was in high
school and it was so novel and so fun
that you could send emails to your
friend
I remember in computer science class
sending emails to all my friends because
the next day I wanted to come back to
computer science and have so many emails
that I had to like scroll to another
page and I remember thinking that was
super cool
whereas now I'd rather not get any
that's crazy yeah we didn't have email
or whatever in my high school or
anything like that so that was like 25
years ago right yeah I think my first
email account was like AOL something
like that you've got mail yep and it was
yeah any email that you got was like
from someone that you knew I mean there
wasn't spam so I it's crazy and it was
the dial-up modem I remember that was
probably gave us like a Pavlovian
reaction because we heard that like all
that and you're like starting to get a
little bit bit excited cuz you're about
to get some emails and get on the
was gonna say now people get lots of
emails it would have been really great
for us to look up some stats but we
didn't people get a lot of emails and
just you know thinking back to my
corporate days I would probably end up
with a hundred or so emails a day
something like that you could imagine a
lot of them you don't necessarily have
to take action on but I mean it was a
flood of emails now it I don't have like
a corporate email that I have to deal
with but I think I get even more emails
than I used to maybe not more than a
hundred but there's more than I need to
take action on each day so I was tuning
out dag as he was talking cuz I thought
how many emails do we get a day so I
have
this is from the internet somewhere how
many emails is the average person
received per day an average office
worker receives 121 emails a day and
sends around 40 business emails daily
that's a lot mm-hmm so today we're gonna
talk about really managing your inbox
and being able to take action on emails
that you need to and just being
productive with email so me personally I
use Gmail for most things now because I
don't work in a corporate setting and
even if I have other you know email
accounts like I've funnel everything
over to one single gmail account that I
could sort and get to if I need to and
what email do you use at work at work we
have Outlook Microsoft Outlook and then
personally I have Yahoo and Gmail
accounts but they don't funnel to each
other so I guess I have three separate
email accounts that I'm managing okay
gotcha and you know what I also have a
yahoo account from way back but it's
mostly for you know I call it spam but
it's mostly for like newsletters or
stuff like that but I'm not really
actively reading especially like retail
stores so just once a week or so well
pop over and have a look at those one
thing we could talk about in the you
know survive the nine-to-five mindset so
you get a bunch of emails at work and
how can you deal with those especially
if you're getting you know whatever the
average was a hundred and twenty per day
do you get a ton of emails at work or
it's not too bad
um right now I think it's not too bad
but I've gone through times where I did
receive I don't know hundreds of emails
a day I have always had an email
management policy I don't know I maybe
I'm a little OCD or I just I just can't
stand having emails in my inbox so and
then I knew people who would literally
have like a thousand unread emails and
there'd be 1,500 emails
in in their inbox at work and I just I
can't live like that
so for me emails if they're not
actionable if I don't need to do
anything with them I get them out of my
inbox and I file them into saved folders
so some companies have like retention
policies so your emails will
automatically get deleted out of your
inbox if they've been there for too long
I think that's probably a great thing so
people don't junk it up but you can
create saved folders probably in any
email server you can create saved
folders and so I maybe you know would
have folder a folder B folder C I read
the email if I need to do something with
it I do something with it if I don't I
file it away and by the end of the week
on Friday my goal is always to have less
than 20 emails sitting in my inbox and
they're all read I never have unread
emails but I think I'm pretty unusual I
think so too
yeah in my corporate days and then I'll
talk about how I manage things now and
like the parts that I struggle with but
in the corporate days I didn't
necessarily clear my inbox on a weekly
basis and at some point I just stopped
sort of putting things in folders and I
would just throw everything into one
archive knowing that if you can search
for an email effectively then you don't
need to put in a particular folder
because at some point the folders get
too big with too many messages to even
search through so I would just archive
on a periodic basis but like you I read
all the emails and I never had like
unread emails even at the end of the day
so you know that brings us to the point
where if you're getting a hundred we'll
just say a hundred emails a day that
means you're getting one every few
minutes and when you're checking out
your email do you do you look at the
emails as you get them or do you batch
it and then you know check your email
period
at specific times during the day I don't
match it I wouldn't say I address every
email as it comes in I have a couple
monitors now so I usually have my email
open on one monitor and like my active
work on the other one so I think I see
what comes across so I know what's there
if there's anything that needs to be
addressed immediately but I don't
necessarily reply to everyone right as
it comes in does that make sense so I
know it's there I don't turn it off I
don't ignore it and I do have the little
email pop-up that I can see even if I
don't have my email up on a screen so I
know what you're getting it that's the
leading he's leading me um I do let it
serve as a distraction throughout the
day but I don't let it totally interrupt
me as I go gotcha and when I was using
outlook I remember when they put out
that version that like added
notifications to your desktop I quickly
figured out how to disable that it was
kind of I was like oh cool like you know
when an email comes in and blah blah
blah but at some point I was like it's
really like every two minutes there was
like some pop-up thing and I think at
first I was like oh I could reply back
sooner but I just it drove me crazy so I
turned that off and then I could just go
check it when I needed to still rain in
the background but no notifications and
I actually to this day I still don't
have notifications and I use a Mac and
they try to add notifications but it's
just so annoying so I turn off
notifications they do not come on my
screen and I'll go look at stuff when
I'm ready to go look at it not when
someone neat like when someone sends me
an email I don't need to look at it
right away
basically I've worked with some some
jerky people over the years and they
probably would say the same about me but
there's the in Outlook there's the
exclamation point that you can put for
you know a very important email
I worked with some people who hated that
they they thought you know I don't care
what you think the priority of this
email is I'll deal with it when I want
to deal with it so I used those
exclamation points very sparingly and
more than the exclamation point if I
need something immediately well one it's
probably better to call or do it
face-to-face but if I do need to write
an email and I want something immediate
I usually put please read in all caps in
the subject line like oh yeah and that
indicates for the people on the other
end if they aren't good email managers
and they have hundreds a day as they're
scanning through it if they see please
read in all caps I hope that's an
indicator to them that hey maybe you
should read this because Elizabeth needs
something I usually I used to put action
required because like please read is not
super direct a night it's just like read
it but I maybe I don't need to take any
action but actually required is like
action require hey I'm even learning
something good tip Doug thanks maybe
I'll change that we're talking about
like receiving the emails and sending a
little bit and I guess once you archive
them like if you need to go find other
emails or whatever are you using like
some advanced searches or do you have
any tricks with that or you just kind of
go hunt and look through I don't have
any tricks with that I mean I use the
search features keywords you know things
like that but yeah no big tricks okay
but I save almost everything I save a
lot because I'm I'm I have a good memory
but I don't remember everything make
sense so I even I have to find like I
have to find stuff and then sometimes I
even write myself emails to summarize
meetings or to summarize something I
want to remember something that happened
so I'll write myself an email and then
file that away so I have it there too if
I think it could be a problem in the
future or contentious or someone's not
gonna remember something or whatever
yeah but no big search tips okay so I
think that was one of the things I was
good at so I remember maybe we should
have opened with something like this
what doesn't work so I had a few
actually I knew a lot of people that
would set up rules and just filters and
different mechanisms to make the hundred
and twenty emails seem smaller so they
would like route things from certain
people or with certain subject lines to
folders and they would spend a lot of
time like trying to figure out how to
set up those filters and all that stuff
and then when it came down to it they
couldn't find the emails so they didn't
know how to search very well and they
were trying to sort it but really it
just like got it out of their inbox but
then they couldn't find it later anyway
my superpower I think was I was able to
like hear someone reference a specific
email that was sent out on you know
maybe I was at a meeting and then in
like two seconds I'd have the email up
and everyone else was kind of like
behind just they couldn't get to it and
basically I just knew how to search well
really simple stuff so like you said you
could search via keywords
who it's from what's in the subject line
and probably one of the biggest things
that I used was like the date in which
it was sent because if you work in a
place for a few years or so you may end
up with hundreds of emails from a person
and then it's not good enough to be able
to say you know it's from Fred you have
to look at the emails from Fred sent you
know in a specific week or something
like that and then you can really narrow
it down and look through the five or six
that he may have gotten that week I
agree that those routing rules can be
problematic but they can also be a very
good thing and if if you don't
understand what Doug was talking about
I've only used those in Outlook but you
can like I used to get it was a daily
update email around something I can't
even remember what but every day I got
this email in my box and it wasn't
anything actionable that I needed to
it was more just for your reference FYI
and it always had the same subject line
so I set up a rule if you ever see this
exact subject line move the email to
this folder and so I think for those
types of of things they can be very
useful just to get stuff out of your
inbox so you don't have to deal with it
but yeah setting up too much of those is
probably a big problem because you're
gonna miss something the emails when
they move to those folders still show as
unread so that's at least an indication
that oh hey I have ten emails in this
folder but it's definitely out of your
immediate line of sight yep
and I used those filters also but it was
stuff like you're talking about so
automated emails that always came out
and at some point I'm like I don't need
like these six emails a day that
basically just have information if I
ever need to go look at whatever data is
in there then I could just go look if I
need to so I would use them
strategically like that and the ones I'm
talking about or like people are trying
to route things because it's an email
from a person on a certain team so that
sort of thing but one thing to be aware
of
I mentioned companies can have retention
policies on emails I think that can also
apply to sent items which was a new
thing for me because I I at other
companies my sent items were there
forever and even sent items expire so if
I know that I'm sending something and I
want a record of that I'll blind copy
myself on it and then file that away -
good point yeah good point
oh okay can I change gears a little bit
when we're talking about emails expect
anything that you write an email to go
anywhere that's all if you put it in
writing and you send it out an email if
anyone could end up with it
how might that happen well I mean a
couple of ways it's very easy to
an email to somebody else and something
that just happened to me recently I sent
an email in reference to a meeting that
I wasn't going to attend to a person
they said oh you're not gonna be there
will you we you know let me know what
you think
so I jotted down a few notes that person
actually pulled that email up in front
of the Whole meeting group at the
meeting so it wasn't just Elizabeth said
this or Elizabeth had concerns with this
they actually pulled the email that went
privately to her up in front of the
whole group so it could also get printed
out and left somewhere I mean if and it
your company they you know I don't know
I don't know if I actually believe their
attention policies that they actually do
delete delete things off the servers
maybe they do but if you put it in
writing in an email even in your Yahoo
or Gmail or whatever I would just assume
that it's there forever and anybody
could end up reading it mm-hmm further
you know now we may even get our
corporate emails on our smartphones so
you know for me working for myself now
like all the emails I get you know would
come to my phone I'm unless I I don't
want them to which I actually limit that
because it's kind of it's a little
insane to be able to get an email 24
hours a day and have your phone vibrate
at you so you know me personally I don't
have notifications for emails I don't
have the little banner or badge to show
me how many unread emails so it doesn't
it used to get in my head and I'm like
oh no I got one email I better go check
on it now it's only when I go look to
see if I have anything on my schedule
when I'm ready to go look for it that's
not I used to have when I think when I
first got a smartphone I had the the
emails pushed out to me and I got a like
you said a buzz or a ding but I pull
everything now and I also I do have work
email on my phone I don't always have it
active but I always turn it off over the
weekend so I don't I don't have it there
as a reminder right I think you know
depending on where you're working you
have to obvious
expectations but a lot of times not
always but at least in my experience
sometimes you may feel like you need to
check your email all the time and during
the weekends because that's what
everyone else does but it may not be a
policy or something you have to do also
I got laid off so maybe I'm not the
right person but I mean you gotta set
boundaries otherwise you know you're
getting emails and on the weekend and
thinking you have to reply back and
sometimes if you just clarify with the
team or whoever you're working with you
know it's probably in most cases fine to
respond during business hours and just
because somebody sent an email on Sunday
afternoon it doesn't mean you should
reply back on Sunday evening
I agree but again we may not be the
right people to talk to because yeah
yeah depends on what you're trying to do
if you're trying to you know make
partner at some great consultancy or
something like that then you know maybe
you got to do that stuff but so the best
the best story I ever heard about an
out-of-office
so in Microsoft Outlook if you're gonna
be on vacation or so you're gonna be at
a conference you don't have access to
your email you can set up a little rule
called an out-of-office where you can
say hey I'm gonna be away from email for
the next five days I'll reply when I get
back just to let people know that that
that's where you are the best rule I
heard about an out-of-office
was someone put in it I'm gonna be on
vacation for the next two weeks any
emails I received during that time frame
will be deleted so if this is important
you know email me when I get back or
call me when I get back and I thought
that was awesome I've never had the guts
to put that in there I don't think it
would be well received in the places
I've worked but I love that because you
get back from vacation and you can have
a thousand emails to go through you
start going through them I don't know
from the earliest to the latest or from
the most recent however you decide to do
it
and a lot of that stuff will already
have been taken care of and you're just
wasting your time
you know sorting through stuff it's two
weeks old so I loved that out of office
but I don't know I never had the guts to
actually do it I've heard of that a
couple times too and I think the key
part that you didn't mention there
because it wasn't super relevant but you
gotta believe a backup or a couple
people like hey if you need something
these are the people to go to to solve
your problem or whatever you need
they're filling in for me and then when
you get back or you of course like find
out from them what happened get the
debriefing and then you can maybe go
through the emails if you want to and
everyone will assume that you you know
deleted them but at least you're caught
up but hopefully your backup like told
you you know what you needed to handle
sure so but that's pretty good I mean
and I think there were a few times where
maybe I was out on vacation for a couple
weeks and then yeah you have literally
like a thousand emails and I mean it
takes a couple days to go through it and
I know some people it's like you spend
the first day that you're back just
dealing with your inbox and figuring out
like if you need to do anything so
anything else in the corporate side of
the mail or anything I have a few other
tips that I do just on email management
you can flag things for follow-up so
when I say only want to have like 20 20
emails in my inbox I don't count the
ones that are flagged for follow-up I
think I always put a date on those so
you can actually create a little flag
and put a date on it so it'll turn red
and remind you when it's due so that's a
cool thing I like that a lot and then
you can also put color categories on
your emails so I've had times just where
there was categories of things I needed
to do and so I would make certain things
green and certain things blue and then
that was also a way to sort of visually
see how much stuff I had sitting out
there I think those are the two main
things that I do but there's a lot of
tools with Outlook that'll help you sort
of stay organized
and not get overwhelmed with your emails
I think that's all for me
corporate wise all right you going on
non-corporate yeah I think some of the
ideas translate also so I'm using Gmail
primarily and as I mentioned I sort of
funnel all the other other domains of
emails that I may have out there into
one account so if you don't realize that
you can like have Gmail check your other
accounts for you and pull in those
emails and then you can also send on
those accounts so I have an account Doug
at Mitch site project comm and I can
send and receive emails from that
account on Gmail so everything kind of
comes together and consolidates into one
place so I can see everything so that's
that's pretty cool so I just need I
could open that one window or tab and
then I have everything I need
now I do as you mentioned sort of keep
everything out of the inbox like some
things need to go there but some
accounts I just want to immediately
archive and tag so there's no folders in
Gmail but tags and labels are pretty
much the same thing so I could click on
a specific label and see everything that
has that label in its box so it's kind
of like a folder but not exactly anyhow
consolidating everything is really
helpful then I don't have to check like
18 different accounts or whatever I
might be dealing with there's this
really cool extension for Gmail and I
think you can get in an Outlook now -
it's called boomerang have you heard of
it I have not do you know anything about
it or I remembered this documentary I
saw where someone used a boomerang I
think it was Crocodile Dundee when he
used the boomerang to get the the robber
and hit him in the head that type of
boomerang it's similar to that I'll go
like that yeah so boomerang is an
extension that it does a few things
there number one it'll they can send on
a delayed basis right so you can send an
email
later you could draft it up send it
sometime in the future
could be like 15 minutes or 15 days
whatever you want you can also flag flag
the email to basically go to the top of
your inbox for a couple different
reasons so it could be a certain amount
of time has passed and you didn't get a
reply or if you do get a reply or if you
don't get a reply just if one week goes
by or however much time it'll go back to
the top of your inbox the idea is you
can just click the boomerang button get
it to do whatever you intend for it to
do and then you can be reminded but it's
archives and it gets out of your inbox
which is kind of the idea that you can
like complete completely like get
through your inbox and have things
happen so it's great because you don't
have to set like reminders elsewhere or
anything like that you could sort of
simulate it by setting a reminder and
like Outlook in the calendar and say in
two days remind me about this email
boomerang handles at all and there's a
couple other functions in there too I
think you can put like notes on a
specific email so you could say you know
this will boomerang and if you want to
make sure you remember why your
boomerang it then you could put the
notes in there oh that sounds really
useful mm-hmm it's really cool and I
think you get some free functionality
and then if you pay I think it's maybe
like ten bucks a month or five dollars a
month then it's basically like unlimited
usage so and here's one sort of use case
it's really helpful to have that is
let's say you're going through your
inbox and you're replying back to emails
sometimes when you reply back to an
email you may get like one or even more
responses back to it so let's say you
have 20 emails you're replying back and
you're like hard I'm gonna make it
through I'm gonna get to inbox zero and
then as you're going down you're getting
like two three more emails and response
so if you delay it by like an hour or
two then at least you can get them to go
out the door
like be sent and then when you when
you're working through your inbox you
can at least have the satisfaction that
you're like replying and your inbox
isn't like you know re accumulating
again I don't know if I'm using the
right word there but you're not getting
more emails as you're going I see
actually there you a boomerang
salesperson no but I should be okay I'm
also a client um
Hair Club for Men sorry so I manage our
credit card bill here and so every month
I send Doug an email and I'm like hey
credit card is due let me know when we
can pay it and I just flag that email
like as unread so it's so I can don't
lose it but I would love to be able to
boomerang it because you know sometimes
it takes Doug a day or two to get back
to me sometimes I have to remind him
again and yeah that's frustrating I
would like that functionality yeah it's
pretty cool learning all sorts of stuff
today I already forgot the first thing I
learned what was that action required
action required and that was the good
one yep
actually oh you know what I'm gonna
start putting that in my emails to you
oh yeah that's action required what I'll
do I'll just I'll make a rule you only
need to tell me if it's over a certain
amount so that should pretty much
eliminate you need to tell me so we're
solving all sorts of problems here we'll
get back to you first time we like
balance our credit card payment so a
couple other things just me personally
at this point I don't have to deal with
a corporate email so I still get a lot
of emails in and I don't get as many but
I think I need to take some action on
them I have an internet marketing blog
and a YouTube channel so I get emails
from readers and like subscribers and
viewers and sometimes they're asking
some questions now this is tricky right
because I I want to stay knowledgable
about the questions that people are
asking and understand you know the
audience and stuff but at some point
it's like too many emails and hey guess
what I've answered that question a lot
of times and I can't blame people for
asking apparently I'm really approach
and people think they could just send me
one email and get like free help and
stuff like that so I must seem really
nice and helpful just in general but at
some point spontaneous laughter you know
what you are very nice and helpful but
at some point it's like it's a little
frustrating because it's hard to keep up
and I have like an assistant that helps
me with some of the emails and I have a
little bit of a system to you know help
alleviate some of the common questions
but I mean the fact is I can't why I
can't afford to just answer people's
questions for free one on one that's why
I do the blog because hundreds and
thousands of people can read it and
that's why I do the YouTube channel so
the point is I get a lot of emails and I
do struggle and that's one of the big
things that I'm trying to figure out how
can i still reply to the emails without
literally just doing something for free
with like people that don't that are not
customers they don't pay me any money
they're just people that read the blog
so I'm trying I struggle with that and
you know I try and do my best and in
fact I reply back to almost all the
emails it just takes me a little bit
longer and the way I deal with it or at
least try to you know number one my
personal email gets behind and a lot of
times what I do is I just deal with the
emails that I need to each day like
probably during the work week and then
it accumulates and sometimes I'll end up
with maybe 50 or 60 e mails in the inbox
where I've taken action and replied back
on stuff that I need to but there's
other things where maybe someone just
asked me a question maybe someone is
asking you to do something for them and
I'm like I'm not sure most of the time I
don't do those things those are things
like hey Doug keep like can you feature
my product on your channel and there's
literally nothing in it for me
and all upside for them and they're
asking me to do work usually that gets
ignored so it takes me some time to work
through them the other hard part and I
think everyone probably deals with this
now
where you get just various email updates
from different companies that you're
dealing with other services and just a
little update emails do you get a lot of
these on your personal email I do I mean
if you bought one thing from I'll use a
company that's out of business linens
and things like if you bought one thing
from linens and things 20 years ago then
you get an email from them once a week
now right so and I mean the hard part I
try to unsubscribe for a lot of those
but I use like various software products
like boomerang like um just SEO tools
and such and there's little updates here
and there so just over time like they
add up and that's one area where I think
a couple a couple weeks ago we're about
to take a trip and I wanted to clear the
inbox and I saw in my tab for updates in
Gmail I had like 800 emails and I mean
most of them are like no action needs to
be taken and what I did I just went back
six weeks and basically archived
everything cuz I was like if six weeks
passed and I didn't do anything it's
probably fine I probably don't need to
take any action and if so someone is
going to ask again so that that was
helpful I just I think it's declaring an
email bankruptcy and you're just like
it and getting rid of everything
and if something comes up again then
I'll take action then I like that term
I'm gonna declare email bankruptcy and I
just recently decided hey I don't have
to live like this in my personal email
with all the the marketing emails that
have just accumulated over time I think
I had just sort of accepted it I'm like
oh yeah that's just what it is you get
all these emails from every company
you've ever walked into and then I
realize hey I don't have to live like
this and so what I'm trying to do I
think is like once a day or once a week
or whatever to just go through like you
said and unsubscribe and so instead of
trying to tackle it all at once which i
think is really overwhelming i'm
like linens and things so I can pick on
a company that's out of business but I
get the linens and things email and I'm
like I don't even live where there's a
linens and things anymore especially
since we moved to Montana we don't even
have access to a lot of stores like on
site like well if I'm never gonna buy
from linens and things I'm just gonna
unsubscribe and my personal emails have
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