Click Here to Save Yourself from the Tyranny of Email: How to Make Email Work for You in This Brave New World

Sisyphus, the wily king of Corinth, is sentenced by Zeus to push a massive boulder up a steep hill for all of eternity. Each time the boulder reaches the top of the hill, it falls all the way back down. He’s condemned to repeat this futile and seemingly absurd task over and over again.

This allegory shares some similarities with email communication in the modern workplace. As Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Workweek says, “The more emails you send, the more you receive.” He’s referencing technologist Robert Scoble, who says you get two emails in response to every one you send.

Doing more can create increasingly more to do, and email is no exception. Not to mention the distracting nature of email can take us away from the truly important things on our plate, with “the winds of other people’s demands and our own inner compulsions [driving] us onto a reef of frustration.” And get this: On average, it takes us 23 minutes to refocus on our original task once distracted. With all the messages flooding our inboxes, just imagine all the time we lose to this distraction epidemic. Let’s learn how email can help us get more done rather than just do more.

I most certainly acknowledge the power and benefits of email. It allows us to reach others around the globe instantaneously. However, its double-edged sword has also inflicted much anguish. As Stephen King warned, “In some cases ... the knife can turn savagely upon the person wielding it ... you use the knife carefully, because you know it doesn’t care who it cuts.” On average, we spend 28 percent of our workdays on email—almost a day and half of each working week—and answer about 120 emails a day (for some it’s much more).

If you believe the quality of emails you send is top notch, you’re doing everything possible to reduce the volume of emails you send, and you have an effective system for managing your email, congratulations! You’re probably not in email jail. Still, even a one percent improvement in your email effectiveness could allow you to have another coaching conversation with a colleague each day. A five percent improvement could allow you to have another lunch break or gym session each day. The three steps outlined below should help you either escape from email jail and / or stay out!

1. Assess the current state of your email efficiency and effectiveness

2. Act to make a number of small changes using the ten commandments

3. Advance to ensure you’re improving and maintain the gains from the actions you’ve taken

Assess: Where Are We Today and What Improvements Could Be Made?

“In God we trust; all others bring data.”

—   W. Edwards Deming, American engineer, statistician and professor

Theory—According to Naval Ravikant, the Angel Philosopher, “A busy calendar and a busy mind will destroy your ability to do great things in this world. If you want to be able to do great things—whether you are a musician, entrepreneur or investor—you need free time and you need a free mind.” To ensure enough free time and time spent on deep work—high cognitively-demanding tasks that require complete focus—we need to understand where our time goes. We’ll do this in a similar fashion to a financial budget, where you “live according to the numbers written down” by putting it “on paper, with purpose before the month begins.” In Tyranny of the Urgent, Charles E. Hummel uses the following example to bring this concept to life:

“Suppose that today I need a new electric drill for an important home project and remember a special cash-and-carry price of $17.90. I put $20 in my wallet and head for the hardware store. But just inside the door I spot a set of five unusual screwdrivers on sale for $3.95 and purchase them. Several counters farther on a new kind of wrench catches my eye, and I spend another $6.90. When at last I reach the electric drills, I discover that I no longer have enough money to buy what I came for. If I had the honesty to return home and tell the family my sad story, how much sympathy would I get? What would they think of my excuse: ‘I didn’t have enough money for the drill’? At the moment the screwdrivers and wrench seemed important, but in the end, they robbed me of the drill I really needed. Many of us who resist spending our money this way, are not equally careful with our time. We spend hours on the impulse of an unexpected opportunity or demand. Then we complain that our time flies away, leaving some important asks unfinished.”

My grandfather used to say, “There are never enough hours in the day. Where do they all go?” Instead of guessing and wondering, we’re going to do an assessment to find out once and for all.

Application—I spent the last two weeks tracking my time in 15-minute increments. When I told my friends, they raised their eyebrows at me, but I learned a lot from the exercise. Where I landed, beyond the fact I’m not sleeping enough and I’m doing too little deep work, was that I’m averaging around four hours a day on email. 90 minutes is spent drafting and sending emails, another 90 responding to emails. I was checking email around 50 times a day—I’d completely fallen off the inbox-to-zero wagon.

Act: What Steps Can Be Taken to Improve Our Email Effectiveness and Efficiency?

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

—   Lao Tzu, philosopher and writer

Theory—In A Servant to Servants, Robert Frost says, “He says the best way out is always through. / And I can agree to that, or in so far / As that I can see no way out but through.” Action needs to be taken to make improvement. Below, I’ve outlined the steps I took, titled “The Ten Commandments of More Efficient and Effective Emailing.” While these commandments won’t be as provocative or punchy as Christopher Hitchens’s, I hope you’ll find them practical and useful.

Application—

Commandment 1: Synthesis—What’s your key message in one, three, six words? According to Daniel Pink in his book To Sell Is Human, “The ultimate pitch for an era of short attention spans begins with a single word—and doesn’t go any further.” The one-word pitch requires clarity of thought and discipline around the exact message you want to convey. While this might seem a little farfetched at first, ask yourself: What technology company do you think of when you hear the word “search?” What credit card company comes to mind when you hear the word “priceless?” If you said Google and MasterCard, you’ve just proved the effectiveness of the one-word pitch.

If you’re struggling to come up with your one word, you’re probably trying to say too much. Pause, work out what you’re trying to say, and then make the decision whether this is one email or more. Once you’ve worked out your one word, expand this to three words, and then six. Check to ensure these six works are the key message, or what Barbara Minto would call the governing thought. Bold these in your email.

Commandment 2: Twitter Rule—What would you say if you only had 140 characters? Mark Twain has been quoted (likely misquoted) as saying: “If I had more time I would have written less.” Communication doesn’t have to be long to be effective. Consider Abraham Lincoln’s two-minute Gettysburg Address or Ernest Hemmingway’s six word poem that won him a bet and also started the six word poetry movement: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” George Orwell builds on this with his six questions for all “scrupulous writers:”

“What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”

Try putting the key information at the top of the email—situation (context), complication (issue, question) and resolution (including actions, if any), or simply a line or two for the context and then a line or two for the specific ask. For additional information that’s relevant, add a section at the bottom of the email that says, “Further Details.” The key is to limit the main body of information to the (now former) Twitter limit of 140 characters. Note—the shorter the email, the more likely you are to get a reply. As marketing guru Seth Godin says, “Why waste a sentence saying nothing?”

Commandment 3: Get to “Yes”—Why would someone read and understand your email? Naval Ravikant says, “You should be too busy to do coffee while keeping an uncluttered calendar.” We know not all the emails we send today get a response, and likewise, we don’t reply to all the emails we get—response rates vary between 5-25 percent. In this world of instant access, you’re competing for the time and attention of others.

It should be crystal clear for the recipient within a few seconds what the purpose of the email is and what you want from them. While a number of cognitive biases might get in the way here, one study showed that a person tapping out a song for test subjects believed 50 percent would be able to correctly identify the song, while only two percent actually could (see the HBR article by the same name). Would someone with no context agree that your email is easy to read and understand?

One thought to leave you with on this commandment is relationships matter. In one study, students were asked to negotiate the price of a car. Negotiators that first chatted by phone were more than four times likely to reach an agreement than those who just communicated via email. People who like you and with whom you’ve built up equity are more likely to read and take action when you email. Continue to invest in these key relationships.

Commandment 4: Close the Loop—How are the asks of others crystal clear (Exactly What, Exactly Who, Exactly When)? There are really only three types of asks from emails: (1) Read the email so that it’s understood; (2) Respond to the email to confirm a decision or a path forward; or (3) Take action outside of email. Moreover, email should only be serving two purposes: To inform others or to make decisions. It shouldn’t be to problem-solve or discuss matters. For all the asks, use the three exactlys—black and white actions that force out both fuzzy thinking and fuzzy execution—to close the loop and help others prioritize and execute efficiently and effectively. This will drive transparency and accountability. It’s a simple norm to set with your peers and will prevent things being left up to chance.

Commandment 5: Pause—How will the world be better because of your email? In the 1946 Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life, George Bailey is confronted by an intervention from his guardian angel to prevent his imminent suicide. The angel shows George all the lives he’s impacted and how different his community would have been if he were never born. It’s a great nudge for us—how will the world be different after we’ve sent our next email? If the answer is it won’t, either don’t send the email or improve it.

Commandment 6: Who’s who in the zoo—What will each recipient get from reading your email? There’s a saying that when America sneezes, the world catches a cold. Well, when you send an email, others are affected. If you add someone into the thread, assume this will take anywhere between 1.5-5 minutes of their time. Even if they simply have to read it, you should also factor in the shift-time for someone to go from one task to another, which is estimated to be a minimum of 64 seconds. While this might not sound like a lot, multiply this by the number of people on the invite and have some empathy for the fact that, on average, people are receiving well north of 100 emails per day.

Similar to an effective meeting, you should have a very clear rationale for why you’re including someone. They should only be in the “To” line of an email if there’s some explicit action they need to take—the “Cc” line if they simply need to read and absorb the information in the email. Another thing to be clear on is not just what you want the recipient(s) to think and do, but also how you want them to feel. So, if you’re having an amygdala hijack and find yourself in fight-flight-freeze mode, don’t click send—unless of course you have a 60-second lag rule on your sent emails!

Commandment 7: Domino Effect—How picking up the phone after three or more replies could avoid an email storm. Most of us grew up with dominos and are well-aware of the chain reaction they can create. A stray email can have a similar effect, where for every email sent you get two or more back. Resist sending problem solving and discussion emails with open-ended questions, instead only sending “inform” or “decide” emails. Once sent, a great norm to set with those you work with is to pick up the phone after three or more replies to any email. Email, after all, is not an ideal tool for problem solving.

Commandment 8: Inbox-to-zero—How triaging your emails before responding to them could allow for more deep work. Not all emails are created equal. According to Chris Sacca, an investor, “Your email inbox is a to-do list that someone else decides.” With this in mind, it’s crucial to set up the rules for engagement and a system for how emails will work as a tool to increase your efficiency and effectiveness. I’ve heard people say, “I couldn’t be effective in my role if I did this.” I would ask that you check this assumption. Besides, is your job to manage email or to deliver on outputs?

Motivational speaker Brian Tracy says, “Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent Return on Energy!” One way to do this is to have two 45-minute blocks for email each day. Use this time to triage your emails like a hospital would its patients. Another metaphor would be treating email management like you treat your laundry. You don’t wash your clothes every single time you wear them, because there’s a fixed-time investment each time you do the laundry. Hence, you batch a certain volume of your clothes and probably do laundry once a week.

Once triaging is complete—which includes lots of deleting and delegating—anything that can be completed within two minutes gets actioned. Following this, tackle the urgent tasks for the remainder of the time. Then you can switch back to what’s in your calendar. In David Allen’s Getting Things Done, he outlines this approach in more detail and argues it’s a great way to “reduce stress and anxiety” and get back in control of your time—an anecdote to chaos, of sorts. Note that clear subject lines in emails—[Please Read] [Please Respond] [Please Take Action]—can help others with the triage process.

Commandment 9: Delayed Delivery—How being more thoughtful of your recipients will pay dividends. A new French law has enshrined an employee’s “right to disconnect” so they don’t remain “attached by a kind of electronic leash—like a dog.” While this is an intriguing way to help employees remain out of email jail once they knock off for the formal workday, I’m not advocating for it. Rather, more empathy for recipients of your emails would go a long way. The delayed delivery function allows you to send your email automatically at a time that’s more conducive to others.

While you might decide to clear your inbox on Sunday morning, I’d advise you delay all Sunday emails to reach recipients on Monday morning. Though you might not expect a reply on the weekend, you’ve likely disrupted someone on their weekend with an email notification. And if you haven’t explicitly had this conversation with the recipients, they might be dropping everything to deal with the tyranny of the urgent. I worked with a client who was embarrassed because she had to step out of her church service on Sunday to run to her car and send an email. She hadn’t set email norms with her boss. When I spoke to her boss, he stated in a blasé fashion, “There was no rush on that ask. She could’ve done it on Monday.”

Commandment 10: Twice-a-day—How setting norms with those you work closest with will allow you to unplug. According to Tim Ferris, “For any repetitive task [like email] you want to batch those tasks at certain times so you are not constantly self-interrupting because the cost is so huge.” Personally, my email signature says: [I check email twice a day. If urgent and requiring a swift response, please text me]. Rather than drop everything to answer emails throughout the day, I’ve decided to allocate two blocks for email each day to practice inbox-to-zero. The only way I’m able to do this—given I average 800 emails a day—is to set norms with the ten people I work closest with. Back to the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) or Price’s Law, this ensures the most important email activity is coming from a select few individuals. This is the hardest commandment to adhere to. As you saw from my assessment, I had completely fallen off the wagon here; but I’ve since done a reboot and recommitted with holds in my calendar, Monday to Friday, for 45 minutes each.

Advance: How Will We Know If We’re on Track to Mastery or Have Fallen Off the Wagon?

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep.”

—   Robert Frost, American poet

Theory—In The Little Prince, the geographer, when asked whether the planet has any oceans or mountains, says, “I couldn’t say.” When the Little Prince follows up with, “But you’re a geographer!” the old man replies, “That’s right, but I’m not an explorer. There’s not one explorer on my planet. A geographer doesn’t go out to describe cities, rivers, mountains, seas, oceans, and deserts. A geographer is too important to go wandering about. He never leaves his study.”

This dogmatism reminds us to understand what’s moving the needle for us and what’s not. For the things that aren’t, put them aside. For the things that are, it’s important to build them into your daily routines. Larry Page, Alphabet CEO and Google co-founder said, “As much as I hate process, good ideas with great execution are how you make magic.” And John Doerr, investor and author of Measure What Matters said, “My mantra: Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.”

The problem is, execution takes time and hard work. As Charles E. Hummel says, “An ocean liner must turn slowly, just a few degrees at a time; otherwise it will come apart at the seams and sink.” It’s these one percent changes—which often aren’t noticeable—that start to compound over time. For example, if you get one percent better each day, by the end of the year you’re 37 times better.

As James Clear outlines in Atomic Habits, “The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees. Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington, D.C., instead of New York. Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff—the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet—but when magnified across the entire United States, you end up hundreds of miles apart.”

Gradual change in the right direction is your best bet. Let’s not forget Colonel Sanders never fried any finger-lickin’ good chicken commercially until he was 65, and Churchill’s most memorable achievements were in his late 60s. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

On the hard work point, American basketball coach Bob Knight said, “The key is not the will to win ... everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.” Naval Ravikant adds, “As long as you can keep taking shots on goal, and you keep getting back up, eventually you’ll get through. Just stick at it.”

According to Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, “Training is, quite simply, one of the highest-leverage activities a manager can perform. Consider for a moment the possibility of your putting on a series of four lectures for members of your department. Let’s count on three hours preparation for each hour of course time—12 hours of work in total. Say that you have ten students in your class. Next year they will work total of about 20 thousand hours for your organization. If your training efforts result in a one percent improvement in your subordinates’ performance, your company will gain the equivalent of 200 hours of work as the result of the expenditure of your 12 hours.” So, invest your time, practice and work hard—it’s the only path to mastery!

Application—One HBR article says we “could save more than half of the time we currently spend on email, or one hour and 21 minutes per day.” Below I’ve taken a quick pass at how I think you could do this, based on a number of assumptions. The levers I’ve selected—reduce word count per email by one quarter on average; reduce the time it takes to refocus on a task after checking email by only checking emails twice a day; reduce volume of emails you send, and therefore receive, by 40 percent; and reduce the average number of recipients per email—can save you hours per day. If you are to extrapolate, this equates to well over $100,000 a year in labor expenses, not including all the opportunity cost from the work you and others could be doing instead of being in email jail. As Muhammad Ali said, “What keeps me going is goals.” So set some and start taking one percent steps toward them. This will get you out of email jail and keep you out!

Conclusion

Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail says, “What will NY152 say today, I wonder. I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart. I have mail. From you.”

Checking email might never be quite this enjoyable, but by taking the three steps—assess, act, and advance—and applying the ten commandments with discipline, you could get out of email jail and start a more fulfilling and productive life. As Confucius said, “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”

Questions to Noodle On

·      What’s the best bit tip or technique you use to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your email management?

·      What are the best books / articles / movies about improving email efficiency and effectiveness?

(All views are mine and not those of McKinsey and Company)