Handling your actions
In a previous post, the focus was on preserving our energy with different email types we frequently receive. The principle was to setup different folders for meeting invites and for CCs, and then to check the invites folder much more frequently than the CC folder.
Today, we’ll look at productive ways to focus on actions – both those where you’re the actor and those where you’ve delegated an action to someone else.
As before, create two folders “To Do” and “To Follow Up” for the respective types.
When an email is received that requires you to do something, drag the email into the “To Do” folder. You can optionally tag it with a priority label – such as ‘1.Urgent’, ‘2.Medium’ or ‘3.Low’.
You can now see your actions at a glance – and by sorting it by priority, it will help to reduce the overwhelm. Once a task is done, drag it to your “Work” folder (or Archive it).
For emails where you’ve delegated a task to someone, it’s vital to create a way to follow up with them. This is how I do it – I set up an automated rule that scans for a subject starting with ‘FU::’ and then moves the email to the “To Follow Up” folder.
After I send an email to someone requesting something, I go to my ‘Sent’ folder and select the email – I then forward the mail and replace the subject line that starts with “FW: ….” to “FU:: <date that action is due> …” . I then send this to myself – the automation rule picks up the email and moves it into the “To Follow Up” folder.
I scan this folder once a day, looking at due-date in the subject line and follow up where it’s appropriate. Fortunately, I only need to focus on those with due-dates today or in the past – and can safely relax with those emails that are still in the future.