Taming the E-mail Beast: The Overdue REBOOT

A Much Shorter, Simpler Mini-Guide
for Professional E-mail Users to Achieve E-mail Mastery

With Video Tips for Outlook and Gmail Users

By Randall F. Dean, MBA
The E-mail Sanity Expert®

© Randall F. Dean 2006, 2009, 2022

Table of Contents

About the Author          iii

Forward: Are you doing it all wrong?          1

Chapter 1: Your First Big Mistake: Looking at e-mails 3-7 times!           5
(This is the only long chapter)

Chapter 2: I don’t have to leave e-mails in my inbox???           15

Chapter 3: But what if it’s on fire!?!  Dealing with your inputs during a crisis               25  

Chapter 4: Let’s save even more time through automating your responses!             27

Chapter 5: Let’s Tackle E-mail Distraction – SQUIRREL!            31

Chapter 6: Have you been starting your day all wrong?            37

Chapter 7: Let’s reduce your e-mail distraction even more!            44

Chapter 8: You now have the CORE of the Taming E-mail System           51

Bonus Video Tips for Outlook and Gmail Users               55

Bonus Chapter: Maybe we should just talk about this???           58

End Note:     63

About the Author …

Randy Dean, MBA,The E-mail Sanity Expert®, is a professional speaker and expert on time & e-mail management and the related use of technology. For 30 years, Randy has been leading programs for major corporate, university, association, and governmental audiences. Obsessed with time management and personal productivity, he left a successful career as a university administrator, professional marketer, and media strategist to become a leading speaker and trainer. The author of the Amazon bestseller, Taming the E-mail Beast, and producer and creator of several video-based self-study courses as well as this new series of “mini-guide e-books”, he has led programs for thousands of inspired students, managers, and professionals on being more productive with their time and technology. His highly informative and entertaining speaking and training programs leave audience members with immediately usable tools, strategies, and tips leading to saved time and effort, more focus, less distraction, and higher efficiency.

Randy is best known for his programs on time, project, people, distraction, and especially e-mail management using popular tools like Microsoft Outlook, Gmail/Google apps, and smart phones & tablets. He also has new programs on working from home more productively, getting more from meetings & virtual meetings, and specific programming on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace tools and systems. His popular YouTube channel provides numerous short video tips on key software tools like Outlook and Gmail, as well as content on key productivity and time management strategies, techniques, and issues.

His speaking and training programs are consistently some of the highest-rated programs for the many clients he speaks for, including at major conferences/conventions, Fortune 500 organizations, top universities, governmental agencies, and leading nonprofits -- basically anyone struggling to better manage their time, e-mail, and smart phone/tablet devices. (And he makes these topics fun and engaging too!)

Before we get started …

I have a little intro video (6 minutes) that I’d like you to watch to understand this new “mini-guide e-book” concept and how this will work for YOU:

Forward: Are you doing it all wrong?

Have you ever wondered if maybe you’ve been doing email all wrong for most of your professional career?

I’m here to tell you that unfortunately there is a very good chance that is exactly what you’ve been doing. And let me tell you why:

• Did you know that less than 10% of working professionals that regularly use email as part of their job have had training on how to best utilize the software and manage their email intelligently?
• Did you also know that the average professional email user looks at their inbox 17 times a day, with about a quarter of them are looking at their inbox anywhere from 20 to 40 times per day? (Can you say SQUIRREL!?!)
• And did you know that because you are self-trained, you are most likely looking at each and every email anywhere from 3 to 7 times before taking a smart and appropriate action with that email?
• And did you know that you are missing out on certain critical automations that are built into your software that can both speed up your daily tasks and outgoing messages while simultaneously improving communications quality over time?
  

You are leaving a lot of productivity on the table. You are losing a lot of time you don’t have. You are spending so much time looking at your inbox that you are not getting your critical work and projects done, or at least not getting them done as quickly as they need to be. And you are getting aggravated because you know e-mail shouldn’t be this difficult and time-consuming.

Today, all of this changes.

I am Randy Dean, MBA, and author of the Amazon bestseller Taming the E-mail Beast that hit the bookshelves more than a decade ago. Ever since I started my training and speaking business almost 20 years ago, I have been going all around the United States, Canada, Mexico, and even Europe showing people there is a better way to manage their email. I keep it simple.I make it fun. But I also show you how to use the inside tools in programs like Microsoft Outlook and Gmail to help you be more productive and prioritized and handle that email in significantly less time.

The world is quite different from more than a decade ago – I am sure you agree. And thus, rather than writing a full length 300-page rewrite of my former book, I am doing something completely different. I am making a mini guide on this topic that you can hopefully read and utilize in just a few hours.

And, if you have been a follower of mine for some time now, you will know that I also have a strong presence on the social networks, especially YouTube. And on that YouTube channel, I have a number of technical tutorial videos for Outlook and Gmail users – many of them only 2 to 10 minutes in length. This has allowed me to build a subscriber base of several thousand for my channel.

And now my plan is to marry these two endeavors.

This e-book is designed to work in conjunction with my YouTube channel’s e-mail video tips to effectively allow you to train yourself to be a superior email user and manager at your own speed and on your own time.

This mini book will not get into the deep technical details – I will use the videos for that. I think it is much easier for people to follow along on technical software tips by watching it on a screen and trying it right as they are watching it. So, this mini book is going to give you the overview of how to be a much better strategic user of email, and then you can watch the video tutorial tips on my YouTube channel for your technical expertise in both Gmail and Microsoft Outlook.

(By the way, I pretty much make all of my Outlook tutorials featuring the “local client” version of Outlook – this is the full download version for your PC that is similar to the Outlook you used to load onto your computer from CDs years ago. It is still the most feature rich option for Microsoft Outlook users, and that is why I recommend you consider using it versus the web or app versions. And if you aren’t sure which version of Outlook you are using, I made a little video to answer that question right here: https://youtu.be/xafJslqb9ac )

But even if you don’t use Outlook or Gmail, this e-book will still probably provide excellent strategic level guidance on how to use any email software program for better productivity, less distraction, and less time spent staring at all those emails.

And one final note on the book’s format – BY DESIGN, I have kept this “short and sweet”. This is not like my original Amazon bestseller from more than a decade ago – a much more traditional book. You may not know this, but when you write a full book for print publication, publishers pretty much force you to “bulk it up” so that it has enough pages to look just like many of the other books in the nonfiction section. The tips in the original were great, but that made the book 250+ pages – I know many people simply don’t have the time to devour a 250+ page book right now. 

THIS e-book is MUCH SHORTER, and is focused on the key aspects and components of my popular “Taming the E-mail Beast” e-mail management strategy.

Chapter 1: Your First Big Mistake: Looking at Each and Every E-mail 3 to 7 Times!

Author Note: This is BY FAR the longest chapter. It provides you the core of the e-mail triage system in both Outlook and Gmail. The following chapters then “fill in the gaps” of the rest of the system and the other critical techniques. Take your time, and maybe plan to try some of the tips in the linked videos as you go through this and following chapters.

As I said in the forward, because you haven’t had formal training on your software, you are most likely looking at each and every email anywhere from 3 to 7 times before taking a smart and appropriate action with that item. Can I show you why?

If you didn’t click the link to that video, what it showed was you taking a new email, looking at it for a moment, realizing you don’t have time to attend to it right now, so as an Outlook user, you either marked it unread or flagged it, and as a Gmail user, you either marked it unread or starred it.

And that means you pretty much guaranteed you have to look at it again later! And again. And again. And not only that, you also get to watch your inbox turn into a giant mess full of unread, flagged, and starred messages. And you’ve put yourself into a hopeless loop of unnecessary hours and days of unnecessary additional review and rework. Excellent. (By the way, you have a LOT of company – I estimate that 90% of “self-trained” e-mail users triage new e-mails this way – I’m seeing just that at my live conference sessions.)

There is a better way that you can adopt starting right now. Here is the graphic from the slide that has been the center point of my Taming E-mail training program for the last 18 years:

It is a simple flow chart showing you how to avoid unnecessary rework with your emails by effectively processing and prioritizing them the very first time you open them. An important sidenote though – what you see above is NOT what I want you to do if you are dealing with a crisis situation or emergency. I will cover that in the next mini chapter. But for now, let’s go through this email processing strategy step-by-step.

You will see at the top of the chart “New E-mail”. And here is what I want you to do when a new email comes in and you actually open it:

I want you to make a new commitment with yourself starting from this point forward for the rest of your professional career: you cannot stop looking at that email until you know what you need to do next with that e-mail. I need you to make a decision: “What is the next thing I need to do with this item?” (No more marking them unread or flagging or starring! You’ll see why shortly.)

And if you are so busy, so crazy, so absolutely on fire that you don’t even have the time to open an email, quickly review it, and then decide what you need to do next with it, why are you even looking at that email? Go to Chapter 3 and see what I recommend you do if you are dealing with a crisis. (Here’s a hint: If you are dealing with a crisis and the day is out of control, you should not be looking at each and every e-mail one at a time right now. Deal with the crisis first. Then come back to this.)

So as your very first step I simply want you to decide: “What is next?” And here is where I would like to mention the work of one of my favorite thought leaders, authors, and experts in the time management genre: David Allen, author of the perennial bestseller in the Time Management area: Getting Things Done — here is a link to the book info page on Amazon:

(This is one of the beautiful things about this e-book format – if I want you to know about a resource that I think you will find useful, I can just provide the link!)

About 30 years ago, I took an in-person class from David in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This was about 10 years before he wrote the book! He fundamentally changed how I look at and process inputs from that day forward. He basically gave me a decision matrix on how to think about and process a new input when it comes in. And what he said next, I took to heart and have used ever since: ‘If that thing you need to do takes a couple minutes or less, you should do that right now!”

Don’t keep quick stuff for later. And if you think about it, there is a ton of inherent sense. First, if you are getting a pretty heavy flow of inputs coming in – email, voice, text, etc. -- and you are not handling the quick ones the first time you see them, they might just stack up and bury you! If you are feeling buried by a whole bunch a little stuff, my first diagnosis as a productivity enhancement expert would be to ask if you are keeping quick little things for later.

Plus, just think about this: if something takes you a minute or less to handle and you look at it three times, you probably just doubled how long it takes to handle it. You are doubling your effort and losing valuable time if you are managing your inputs this way. You just need to get ruthless with quick little things and deal with them the very first time you see them.

Here's a good way to remember this tip: Let’s go to O.H.I.O. – Only Handle It Once!

###

(If you are not fully swamped by e-mails, other inputs, and other “little things” – they are just more of a nuisance – you can skip the next few paragraphs and go to the one that starts with “Now, …)

If you have so many "quick little things" you need to process, and they are getting in the way of you being able to actually do your most important work, then you need to ask a higher-level question:

“Why am I doing so many of these little things and not working on the critical projects or activities I was hired for?”

Frankly, maybe it’s your job.

You may have a job design issue: your organization hired you to do certain things, manage certain projects, lead certain activities, and more, but you are getting so many emails, voicemails, phone calls, and text messages that you can’t even get to that critical work.

If that sounds like your actual reality, you need to elevate this discussion – email is likely not even your problem in this situation – you need to have a reallocation of your workload and responsibilities, including some form of delegation or redistribution of possibly a significant portion of the inputs/e-mails you are expected to manage. Of interest, Mark Ellwood, a productivity consultant in Toronto, Canada, has done “timecorder” studies with numerous organizations, and found that knowledge workers are only spending 12 – 30% of their work time on their most critical items. That’s crazy. And I’m willing to bet that a good part of that “not critical” time is spent on unnecessary management and review of e-mail and other inputs. And if I am describing you, that could honestly jeopardize your career and long-term success.

###

Now I am going to assume most people are not in the trap of needing a full redesign of their job to be successful with their inputs. I’m assuming that if you instead just had a few more good strategies for better managing your inputs, including email, you would do far better in your work and have more time for your more important stuff.

Here is the video tip on how you can convert emails to task, calendar, and contact items in Microsoft Outlook:

You can put any text here

And here is the video tip on how you can do the same using Gmail – converting e-mails to Google Tasks, Google Calendar items, and Google Contacts:

You can put any text here

I would recommend you stop right here and go practice these new skills with the video tips above depending on whether you use Outlook or Gmail. And remember, by using these video tips, you have the ability to pause and rewind these videos while you are actually trying these tips in the software! You can learn at your own pace and speed (and this will work even better if you have a dual monitor set up with the video tip on one screen and your e-mail software on the other.)

Now, an important point here -- think about the simple logic of what we have covered up to this point:

First, if you open an email, you make a decision about what you need to do next.

If it is quick, you handle it right now (O.H.I.O.)

If it is not quick, then it should become part of your task list or your calendar.

So, the quick stuff has been handled, and the longer stuff is now waiting for you in both your task list and calendar, so you can better prioritize your next actions and the best use of your available time. Here is how to visualize the "top of the decision tree":

Or Maybe Calendar?

Now at this point, I’d like to share a little bit of a bigger picture concept. You probably won’t get everything done! But I am betting that you aren’t getting everything done already. However, by moving to this new strategy and system, you will be getting the quick stuff done and gone, and through prioritization of your time and effort through the use of your task list and your calendar, you will have a better chance to get the most important stuff done more regularly.

And from my 30+ year professional career in numerous different organizations: large and small, for-profit, nonprofit, and university, I promise you this – if you are the person on your team getting the most important stuff done more than everyone else on your team, you are going to do just fine!

By the way, if it is your task list that is overwhelming you even more than your e-mail, here is a little video suggestion of a possible “relief valve” strategy: https://youtu.be/2qWBZNEZgDg 

t

“Most people major in minor stuff.” – Jim Rohn

Chapter 2: I don’t have to leave e-mails in my inbox???

Now, let’s revisit the decision tree above and take a look at what you do with these emails now that you either a.) Got them done, or b.) Added them to your task list or calendar. This is my personal definition of “Done for Now”. I strongly believe that once you get an email to “done for now” status, it no longer needs to be in your inbox.

(Wouldn’t you agree it’s done for now? If you actually got it done, it is "done for now", and if it is on your task list or calendar for later prioritized action, it is also "done for now"!)

So, if you fully know you no longer need it, you can delete it!

And, if you think you may need to retain it for future reference or use, then you should file it into an appropriate subfolder or archive location.

However, one of the biggest concerns shared with me by the people attending my programs is that they are actually somewhat scared to put emails into folders because they are afraid they won’t be able to find them later. Thus, they leave everything in their inbox and lose control of it. And that is why their inbox becomes such a big mess.

But here’s a big problem with leaving e-mails that are “done for now” in your inbox – the science shows you will probably look at a good number of these e-mails again later, even if you are done with that item, just to make sure that you actually did something with it. Most people cannot remember if they opened and acted upon and old e-mail, so if it is left in their inbox, they look at it again and again! Yes, that is a pure form waste of time (not to mention really close to the definition of insanity.)

However, there are several strategies you can use to make nearly certain that you can find those emails quickly when and as needed

Now, the Devil is in the details here: If you are a Microsoft user or Gmail user, I have slightly different strategies and recommendations for how to retain emails you need to keep.

Let’s start with Microsoft Outlook users (Gmail users jump ahead):

First, I have a tutorial video (19 min.) for Outlook users on how to effectively use the “Categories” within Microsoft Outlook (although you don’t need to watch the full 19 minutes to get the relevant e-mail management tips): 

As the video above shows, using the Categories in Outlook gives you the opportunity to add several labels to an individual email before you file it into a folder, and then you can search by categories to find those emails that have been labeled, regardless of the folders they have been put in.

And, as an Outlook user, did you know that you can actually change the subject line on an email that has been sent to you or that you have already sent? You can actually open up an email and edit the subject line and then save the email before closing it. Here is the very short 3-minute video tip for that: 

Adding Code Words to 
E-mails in Outlook

Thus, by changing the text the subject line contains, you could actually put keywords for later search in your subject lines before filing, like Project A, Client B, Vendor C, etc. And thus, you can also search for your emails in Outlook by keyword. The combination of using Categories to label your emails before filing them in Outlook as well as the ability to “codeword” or keyword the subject lines of emails you have received and/or sent before filing means that you should be able to find just about any email fairly quickly using search, regardless of the folder!

BONUS: Here’s a 6-minute video from a couple years ago on Outlook Search tools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYcDTOf781M

Gmail Users – Here are your tips!

Now if you use Gmail, you will follow a slightly different strategy:

Did you know that the folders in Gmail are effectively the exact same as the labels in Gmail? And the labels are the same as the folders! Don’t believe me? Go create a new label in your Gmail. Then click on the folder button and see if that new label is now also listed as a folder. It is, isn’t it? And now try it the other way – create a new folder in Gmail and then click on the label button – there is now a new label with the same name, isn’t there?

Now I have to admit, even though I had been teaching email management strategies for several years up to this point, I was a bit confused when I first saw this label and folder strategy in Gmail. I seriously asked myself several times, “What are they doing here!?!”

And then I realized it was absolutely genius. Let me explain why: whenever you create a folder, it creates the same label. Whenever you create a label, it creates the same folder. and thus, you don’t have to choose which folder you want to put it in. If you prefer, you can put that single email into every single folder it’s related to by simply using the labels instead of the folders. Click on ALL of the possible folders that email could be related to – you can select more than one. Once you have all of the appropriate labels selected, hit Apply. Now, you will see all those labels attached to the top of the email. And now, hit the Archive button upper left corner of your Gmail inbox.

And that email is no longer in your Gmail inbox, but it is in ALL of the folders that you selected using the labels. Thus, one email can be in multiple folders at the same time! You don’t have to choose – put it in every folder it is related to, and find it wherever and whenever you need it! It is genius!

OK, if your head is spinning a bit, I made a video to show exactly what I’m talking about here (although it is entirely possible your head will still be spinning a bit after watching):

https://youtu.be/B0E_XvM1AE4

I will say this is one place I find Gmail to be somewhat superior to Microsoft Outlook. In Outlook, the Categories and the Folders are two separate entities. In Gmail, the Labels and the folders are one in the same, and you are not forced to choose. You can choose them all. And when you go looking for that email, it will be in all the places it needs to be.

However, you also have very robust search capabilities in Gmail – you can find your stuff there too! Here is a quick video about how to use search in Gmail:

https://youtu.be/UO013W4pknQ

Let’s get a bit strategic on this (and help others in the process) …

Now think about what would happen if, by nature, you included critical keywords in the subject lines of the emails that you are composing right as you are composing that email? Not only will it make it easier for you to find it in your sent folder using search, but you will also make it easier for the people that receive these emails to find them in their email account. This might be something worth bringing up in an upcoming staff or team meeting – that if everyone could take a little more time to create better subject lines that have better descriptions and critical keywords, you could actually end up saving the entire organization quite a bit of time later on when it comes to search, filing, and file management. (I talk a bit more about this and other related e-mail quick communication tips in the bonus chapter at the end of the book.)

Now here is the interesting thing that I’d like you to consider: if you can add labels to your emails in both Outlook and Gmail, and you can add keywords to emails you sent or received in Outlook, or you just started writing better subject lines for your emails in Gmail, and you can just use search to pretty much find whatever email you need whenever you need it, maybe youdon’t need quite so many folders!

I actually made a video that discusses the three different philosophies for folder structure in email: https://youtu.be/ErAw1ZUYXS4

One of the strategies is the very complex structure with numerous drop-down subfolders inside of main folders, the second strategy barely has ANY subfolders, putting everything into a “Done for Now” folder, and using search to find whatever you need (but also allowing you to not store all of those darn emails in your inbox where you might look at them again!) I’m actually expecting that most people when they watch this video will opt for option three – a bit of a hybrid in between the two different options, where you have a few main folders for your most important projects, clients, vendors, and activities, or and then put everything else into a more generic subfolder, and you find your stuff using search when needed.
###

Now I want you to consider all of the tips above. There really should be no reason for you to keep any email in your inbox that has reached “done for now” status. If you got it done, you should file or delete it. And if you added it to your task list or calendar, you should file or delete it. And with the ability to add labels and possibly keywords to your emails before you file them, you should have confidence you can find that email later if you need it. So put it away!

And this also leads to the possibility that you could actually clean up your existing mess in that inbox (I know – a crazy concept!)

I will tell you that I have many people come to my live in person sessions and webinars that literally have thousands if not tens of thousands of emails in their inbox proper. But if you have these tools and start using the strategies from this point forward, all you need to do is spend a bit of time cleaning up what’s already there, and you can fairly quickly get to an “email zero” status, which is my goal with email every workday: I want to get that inbox to zero at least once that day! Then I know I’m keeping it under reasonable control.

Now, I can greatly speed up your ability to get your existing mess under control. I created about a 15-minute tutorial video that deep dives how do use tools like search, sort, and filters in addition to some of the strategies I shared above related to folders and labels:

https://youtu.be/yEyxLPSg6g8

Using the tips in this video will allow you to fairly quickly clean up a very big mess in your inbox. So, if you are motivated, block a little time on your calendar, open up that video, and start cleaning up the big mess. (This might be a video to watch one time through before actually doing the work to start cleaning up that inbox so that you can understand the overview structure of what I’m recommending here. And then, the second time through the video, if you have multiple monitors, have the video on screen 2, ready to hit the pause and rewind buttons as you go through the inbox clean up process on screen 1.)

One additional recommendation – do you know if your company or firm already has a document and each document retention policy?

Because if they do, they just made this job that much easier. You can use that e-document retention policy (which should also cover e-mails) to determine if there are a large number of emails you can now just get rid of because they have passed their date of retention. And of course, if you have questions, you should follow up with your firm’s IT and document retention experts before going through this process. But the process in the video can greatly speed up your ability to clean up that messy inbox.
Whoa, those were some in-depth chapters! (They get shorter from here.)

Let’s summarize the key points:

1. If you open a new email, you will not stop looking at it until you know what you need to do with it next. DECIDE!

2. If what you need to do next takes a couple minutes or less, you will do those right now. (Remember O.H.I.O.? Only Handle It Once!)

3. If not, it moves to your task list and/or calendar (possibly using the slick tips for auto conversion in both Outlook and/or Gmail)

4. And then, you either file it or delete it.

5. And if you don’t have a good folder to keep it in, you make one and put it there!

Chapter 3: But what if it’s on fire!?!  Dealing with your inputs during a crisis

This chapter will be much shorter than the previous chapters. In the previous two chapters, I laid out a strategy for effectively triaging a new incoming email. But I also mentioned that if you are in a true crisis situation, I will say strongly that you should not utilize the normal e-mail triage method shared in the first two chapters. A methodical, one-at-a-time strategy makes nosense when you have an active fire burning. A far better strategy is to put all of your focus into putting out that fire!

What I mean by this is that you should keep your focus on whatever the crisis situation is and put all of your resources and effort toward solving or dealing with that crisis. So, if you are dealing with an active crisis, and you need to check your email, voicemail, text messages, or instant messages to see if they have relevant and critically needed information related to the crisis, here is what I recommend you do instead.

Open any or all of the input channels that I just mentioned above. From the main view screen (e-mail, voice, text, IM), scan down through all of the subject lines, usernames, and phone numbers. Go directly to the item that is related to the active fire that is burning right now. Don’t even look at non-related items.

When you are dealing with a crisis, you want to keep 100% of your focus and effort on the item that is actively burning right now. If you get distracted by non-related items, you will let that fire burn even longer, and you might personally get burned! The crisis situation could get out of hand. Always deal with a true crisis first and foremost.

Once it has been appropriately dealt with (no longer on fire), and no other active fires are burning, then (and only then!) should you revert back to your normal email processing strategy as identified in the first 2 chapters.

In essence, you use the strategy that was laid out in the last two chapters for processing, managing, and filing typical normal emails in a methodical, consistent manner ONLY when all of your fires are put out (crisis has been handled). And you keep using that normal e-mail triage strategy until the next fire pops up, where you then once again revert to full focus fire/crisis management!

Using the combination of strategies discussed in the last two chapters and this current chapter means that you can both deal with an unexpected crisis with full focus when needed, and also effectively manage normal incoming messages when nothing is actively burning.

Now, let’s shift gears and save you a BUNCH of time…

Chapter 4: Let’s save even more time through automating your responses!

This is potentially one of the biggest time savers for most professional e-mail users — automating your most common e-mail responses to regularly-received questions and requests for information.

Most of us have certain e-mail messages (or parts of messages) that we seem to send out again and again: the standard response to that frequently asked question; the directions to your office; your normal policy on merchandise returns, etc. Most people, if they know they have answered that question before, will go find it in their Sent folder to use it again, or possibly keep the answers or text in a Word or Google doc to have available for copying and pasting later.

However, did you know that both Outlook and Gmail offer some slick options to automate these kind of messages? You can literally make many of these responses automated push-button replies, saving you minutes of time every time you use one.

Here is a video showing three different options for Microsoft Outlook users depending on if the repeating text you are reusing is just a snippet, a full draft of a message, or a message with several attachments (this video is a bit older, but still accurate in technique!): 

And here are videos showing two different options in Gmail to help you set up these automated message replies and responses (including a new option in Gmail for multiple signatures!):

Video 1: Setting up/using Gmail Templates: https://youtu.be/I9NtJFdHKrg

Video 2: NEW: Creating/Using Multiple Signatures in Gmail: https://youtu.be/eW5ehKSNQ7w

Even if you are not using Outlook or Gmail, you can take advantage of the higher-level strategy here by creating an “Autoresponses” folder in whatever email program you are using, and then moving copies of messages that you are frequently using into that folder (maybe you can BCC yourself when sending the original message you know might make a good template for future messages, and then move the copy into the new “Autoresponses” folder when it pops back into your inbox a few seconds later.) 

And thus, when you need to use it, just use the forward button with that auto-response message to make a new version of the message to send on to the next person (or, if easier, simply copy/paste the text of the older e-mail into your new message.) When using the forward option, you may have to clean up the message header and beginning text a bit (like I showed in the Outlook video above) to use it over and over again, but this is still a BIG time saver vs. retyping the whole response or spending too much time looking for the last time you sent it!

This strategy can be a massive timesaver for certain jobs, especially ones where you are frequently asked the same questions or for the same basic information and thus are using the same messages/parts of messages to answer those questions/inquiries. (Had I known this in one of my previous jobs working in a director-level administrative position for a major university, I am quite certain it would have saved me five or more hours of time per week – that’s an hour a day!)

And now I want you to go back to the previous chapters and think about the email triage process that was discussed:

Doesn’t this strategy now make many of your email responses take only a couple minutes or less?

You can do them NOW! You don’t need to keep those new emails for later processing – you can now just handle them by using your auto responses, and then file or delete the original message. Not only will this speed up your upfront productivity, but it will also help you keep your inbox under control since these messages won’t be “stacking up”.

I will say one last time – this chapter is a BIG DEAL for saving time!

Now, let’s talk about reducing your email distraction…

Chapter 5: Let’s Tackle Some of Your E-mail Distraction

Let’s remind you of one of those crazy e-mail statistics from the start of the book: did you know that the average professional email user looks at their inbox 17 times per day? And about a quarter of you are looking at your inbox anywhere from 20-40 times per day?

Can you say SQUIRREL!?!

And did you know that looking at your e-mail and other workplace input streams too frequently (including voicemail, text messages, IM’s, etc.) can actually negatively affect your short-term IQ?

A study conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London several years ago found that working professionals that were constantly monitoring e-mail and other inputs suffered as much as a 10-point drop in their short-term IQ — about the same as missing an entire night of sleep! (Source: Yoga Journal)

Not only are you likely looking at your email inbox too often, but because you do, you are also making yourself dumb. And distracted. (This is not a Jim Carrey movie.) It is also not a great combination.

However, don’t beat yourself up too badly: there are some rational reasons for checking email quite frequently. Sometimes, the message that just came in is really important or urgent. Sometimes it’s from somebody very important. And if you have no system for identifying the more important/urgent messages coming in vs. the average messages and junk & spam, you may feel obligated to check every message coming in right now just to see if it IS important, urgent, or from someone important. And that is a bit of a trap!

However, did you know that both Outlook and Gmail have tools that can automatically let you know when your most common important messages or important senders are trying to contact you?

Here is a slightly older video for both Outlook and Gmail users (but still technically accurate) on how you can set up your Rules in Outlook so that important messages and messages from important people can either pop up on your screen or make a special sound or both (Note: the actual tip for Outlook users starts at about 2:15 in the video – first two minutes reiterate many of the points in the beginning of this chapter.)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=K8zSp0RLnUw&

This same video above shows the same basic capabilities through the use of Gmail‘s filters and settings (Note: the tip for Gmail users starts at about 4:15 in the video above – you will see that this version of Gmail was before they added the “Quick Settings” panel in Gmail, so bypass the Quick Settings panel by clicking "See All Settings" to get to the full Gmail Settings panel.).

Now you will notice that by setting up your filters and mail notifications in Gmail, you should only get notified when an important message comes in. Typical average messages shouldn’t bother you. (And if you really want to chase off the squirrels, you’ll even have the option to turn off ALL mail notifications in your Gmail.)

AND, this same video shows how you can do the SAME THING – turn off ALL mail notifications – in your Microsoft Outlook’s File Options (watch all the way to the end!)

Now consider everything we’ve discussed up to this point:

• You have an email triage system where you will now handle quick items the first time you see them and move everything else into your task list or calendar for later prioritized action.
• You will either take those same items and put them away or throw them away (file or delete), leading to a clean inbox.
• And now that you know you can set up notifications for your more important and urgent messages, that should untether you from having to check every new message right now.
  
  

So when do you check your normal messages?  That depends on the nature of your job!

I believe you should now consider getting on some form of a time-based email regimen that fits you and your job. This leads to the question you need to ask yourself:

“How often should I be checking my email messages and other inputs to be appropriately responsive to my clients, customers, and coworkers, without looking so often at my inbox that I am constantly distracted?”

The goal here is to have some uninterrupted blocks of time, even if those are short blocks of time, where you can actually get some work done without being distracted by your e-mail! However, if you now have your prioritized notifications set up, you can still respond immediately if necessary to important and urgent messages and people. (By the way, I added a bonus chapter at the end where I talk about how to get your team to maybe adopt some commonsense strategies to help you (and them!) to send better, smarter e-mails and maybe be less distracting – not just with their e-mails, but with ALL of their workplace communications.)

Now that you have these alerts and notifications for your most important items/senders set up, this leads to a new recommendation for how you can work your day: once you know your email and other inputs have been triaged early in the day (we will talk about this a bit more later — you are likely making a mistake right at the start of the day too!), and your inbox is at or close to zero, you can then shift your focus to both your calendar and your task list for the best prioritized use of your time, working on your most important projects and activities, or attending your next meeting or appointment, until it is once again time to check your email again.

And when it is time to check your email throughout the day, you always use your triage strategy like you did at the start of the day, with quick emails being handled right now, longer ones once again going into your task list and or calendar, and then the original emails being either filed for later reference outside of your inbox or deleted if no longer needed. 

(Yes, you have read this multiple times now – I’m being repetitive on purpose. Did I tell you that “Repetition is the mother of skill”? – A quote made famous by the late John Wooden, famous UCLA basketball coach.)

And of course, if you receive a notification that one of your most important or urgent messages came in from one of your most important people, you can quickly and easily shift your focus to that new important item until it is properly handled before going back to the daily productivity regimen as described above.

Here is a little 4.5-minute video blog post I made a few years ago that basically summarizes everything discussed above, and how many people are getting e-mail, project, and task management BACKWARDS (with of course the tip on how to correct that!) https://youtu.be/THtjMGAV9ko

My hope is that by using this combination of tools, nearly all professional email users can simultaneously look at their email inbox less times per day, while still being able to respond quickly to urgent and important items, and yet also still have more time for working on their most important projects, activities, and events (TASK, TASK, TASK!) with less overall distraction.

Doesn’t that sound great!?! (I hope it does.)

But have you been sabotaging your focus simply by what you do at the start of your workday? And is e-mail the culprit? …

Chapter 6: Have you been starting your day all wrong?

I really hope what I am about to share with you would seem very simple and completely obvious once you consider it. I have been asking a new question at my programs over the last couple of years, getting a surprisingly consistent yet disappointing result:

How many of you start your day by opening your inbox and checking your email?

The responses I am receiving must be well above 90% in nearly every group – from corporate to non-profit, university to government, association to international. (I usually then make a joke about how many people get a cup of coffee before even checking e-mail – most keep their hands up! “First I do the coffee … then I do the things!”) But jokes aside, the vast majority of professional workers start their day by diving into their email – cup of Joe or not.

And then I ask an appropriate following question:

What have you just done!?!

I will tell you what I believe you have done – I believe you have started your day by giving the squirrels your highest priority and focus.

And I think that is an utterly outstanding way to help guarantee that many of your days go off the rails right from the start – becoming highly distracting and frustrating – and keeping you from reaching your higher productivity targets and goals. It makes sense – e-mail is usually not the most important thing on your plate, but if you look at it first, you’ve given it false priority!

I am recommending a very simple and common-sense adjustment to your start of day routine:

What if instead of opening your inbox first, you instead spent a few minutes 1) reviewing your calendar, and then 2) you built a smart prioritized task list for today that not only includes next step items on some of your key projects, activities, and events, but also reflects the amount of time you have available on your calendar today to get those tasks done (notwithstanding the time already committed to meetings and other appointments)?

Now, if you are doing what I just mentioned properly, the two-step routine I just mentioned above should literally only take about 3 to 5 minutes at the start of each day. You will open your calendar, look at today’s calendar and see how much time is already blocked by meetings and other appointments, and how much time is available for you to get some work done. You will then look forward at least a few days, seeing if there is anything coming up on your calendar that you need to start preparing for (that should be on your task list!), as well as if you have any big open chunks of time in the next few days. If you do, maybe you should consider blocking some of that time so you can work on one of your most important projects or items (that way, every minute of your day will not be spent in someone else’s meetings and reviewing all of those emails!)

And then, after doing this quick review of today’s calendar as well as a few days into the future, you build a smart, focused task list for TODAY that reflects items from your most important projects, clients, activities, and events, but also reflects the amount of time you actually have available today for getting those tasks done. (I don’t want you to end up with a task list every day that is so long you cannot possibly achieve it – that only leads to stress and disappointment. I’d rather you have a short and actionable task list in some form of a priority order that will keep you moving forward on your most important projects, items, activities, and events.) This daily startup routine will empower you to take smart and effective actions with your available time.

And so, 3 to 5 minutes into the start of the day, you have reviewed your calendar not only for today but also several days in advance, and you made a smart, focused, prioritized task list that you can act on during your available time today.

And now you open your email!

And yes, now it is time to go through the email triage process that was shared in chapters 1 & 2: If you open it, you make a decision. If the thing you need to do takes a couple minutes or less, you do that now. If it takes more than a few minutes, you add that to your calendar or your task list for later prioritized processing and action. And then, once done or tasked/added to your calendar, you then either put that thing away, or throw that thing away – put it into a folder, archive it, shred it, recycle it, or delete it!

And don’t just triage your emails – review ALL of your new inputs from overnight – voicemail, snail mail, text messages, documents and e-documents, instant messages, and more. And use the same basic decision tree on every new item that came in overnight.

And so, after 30 to 45 minutes (maybe 60 minutes on a bit of a crazy day!), you will have reviewed your calendar, built a smart task list for today, and gone through all of your inputs – not just emails but all of your workplace inputs – immediately handling the quick ones and triaging what is left into your task list or calendar before filing or deleting/trashing. And rather than looking at each and every one of those emails 3 to 7 times, you will now have looked at that email once – maybe twice – max! 

How much time could that save you over a year?

But not only that, now you will have a much better frame of reference when you get into all of those emails and inputs. By habitually going over your calendar and making a smart task list first, when you start reviewing all those new inputs and e-mails, you will be much better able to gauge the true priority and urgency of those new input items. You will KNOW if that new e-mail or voicemail truly IS the most important thing.

If you haven’t looked at your calendar & task list first, I would argue that is why you find yourself often working on the wrong things at the wrong times – you are giving e-mail and new inputs too much priority, and your critical projects, activities, and time not nearly enough priority.

Here’s a little 4-minute video snippet from one of my live webinars that discusses this change to your daily startup routine. It is from one of my Optimizing Your MS Outlook programs (a GREAT follow up program for my MS Outlook users! Take 20% off using code RandyEbook at checkout -- works on any program!), but it is relevant regardless of whether you use Outlook, Gmail, or any other e-mail/calendar software program:

This little habit change of starting your day for just a few minutes in your calendar and your task list could fundamentally change your focus, prioritization, and levels of distraction and related stress.

But don’t trust me … Try it! Try this little habit change for the next week to 10 days and see if you start your day with more focus and less distraction. And also look at your higher-level productivity over that next week to 10 days – does it feel like you are now getting to your more important stuff more frequently? If so, this little habit change works beautifully for you.,

By the way, did you know that you can set up both your Outlook software and your Chrome browser to automatically open to your Outlook or Google calendar? Check out this video for both Outlook and Google users: https://youtube.com/watch?v=oCsDDIQodD4&

And here is one cool bonus video for you – since you are now going to be looking at your calendar and task list significantly more (and hopefully your inbox a whole lot less!) – if you have dual monitors, did you know that you can see both your Outlook calendar and your task list view at the same time? Check out this 1-minute tip: https://youtube.com/shorts/oocoU1a06UQ

And here is how you can do the same thing with multiple monitors in the Chrome browser: https://youtube.com/shorts/iQ74NTOLGw4

And now, you have yet another tool in your tool kit to tame all of those squirrels and keep your focus!

Now, let’s finish up with a few strategies for reducing overall inherent email distraction…

Chapter 7: Let’s reduce your e-mail distraction even more!

A couple chapters ago, we showed you how you can effectively “program” both Microsoft Outlook and Gmail to let you know when your most important messages are coming in as well as when your most important senders are trying to reach you. In Outlook, we showed you how to set up Rules to better identify your most important messages, your most urgent messages, and messages from your most important people. And in Gmail, we showed you how to utilize a combination of filters and adjusting your incoming mail notification settings to do the same. (Here’s that video again: https://youtube.com/watch?v=K8zSp0RLnUw& )

But if you are watching this video closely, you will also notice that it briefly discussed how you can use these exact same tools to better identify and block or automatically delete messages from problem senders as well as messages that are basically just junk or spam. In Outlook Rules, not only can you tag specific messages and senders to have special notifications and pop-ups on your screen, but you can also flag certain messages and senders so that they are automatically and permanently deleted. And that can be a remarkably helpful strategy for that person, company or specific messages that keep annoying you with the same repeating junk/spam content in your inbox.

Take a look at this video here – it talks about why you shouldn’t use “Unsubscribe” most of the time (more on this below!), but at 2:45 in the video, I give specific technical tips for Outlook users on how to both set up Rules for auto-deletion and how to set up “Blocked Senders” in your Quick Access Toolbar: https://youtu.be/9Co_jWsgCuk

You can use a very similar strategy in Gmail utilizing the same Filters we covered earlier. Inside the Filters, once you set up the filter search for that problematic message or sender, one of your drop options is to automatically delete or send to spam. At 4:45 in the same video above ... https://youtu.be/9Co_jWsgCuk

... you can see the technical options for using Filters/Blocked Addresses and the “Stop Sign” button in Gmail.

And you might be asking, “Randy, why don’t I just unsubscribe?”  Well, if you watch the whole video above, you’ll better understand why you might want to be very careful using unsubscribe because it might make your junk/spam problem even worse. Here’s the link again:

https://youtu.be/9Co_jWsgCuk (WATCH THIS VIDEO!)

As you can see in the video, some spammers can make quite a bit of money selling the list of their unsubscribes! And if you are on that list, your mailbox might be about to get bombed with even more junk and spam – oh joy!

And thus, I basically recommend that you only use unsubscribe if the party emailing you is someone that you know you personally started the relationship with and that you personally requested that information or service, and you also know they are a reputable firm that does ethical marketing. In this case, unsubscribe usually works. But if you have no recollection of ever signing up for that information in the first place, using unsubscribe might make your problems much worse.

Now very often, the random junk or spam message that comes into your inbox is a new one – you don’t recall seeing it before, and you also don’t recall seeing messages from that sender previously. In a one-off situation like this, I actually recommend a slightly easier and quicker strategy: if you use Microsoft Outlook, did you know that when you go to delete a message, if you hold down the shift key while hitting the delete button for that selected message, it bypasses the deleted items folder – IT IS GONE! That is how you manually do a hard permanent delete of a message. (And thus, you don’t have to delete your deleted items to get rid of that item – the Shift-Delete option is a “permanent bye bye!”)

In Gmail, it is even a bit easier – as mentioned in the video above, simply click the little checkbox next to the email message in your inbox and then go up to the top of your inbox and click the little “Stop Sign” icon. That is how you report a new junk/spam message to Google, and here is something cool about it – Google learns from the millions of different Gmail users! If you and a number of other Gmail users all mark the same message as junk or spam, not only will Google know that message is junk or spam, it will probably also know that this sender is sending out junk or spam and will automatically target their future messages to go right into your spam folder.

Get RUTHLESS!

I basically want you to get ruthless with junk and spam messages, without taking actions that could backfire and increase the amount of junk and spam you receive. The combination of rules and the Shift-Delete key stroke combo for Outlook users, and the combination of Filters/Blocked Senders and the “Stop Sign” button for Gmail users gives you the ability to effectively attack both “one-off” junk/spam messages as well as messages from repeating spammers.

And now, let me give you a higher level strategy that might do even more to keep junk and spam from getting especially into your work email account.

Do you have four active e-mail accounts?

I have FOUR active email accounts right now. (You read that right.) I basically have two work accounts — the account I created for my business more than a decade ago that is managed/hosted by my website provider, as well as my slightly newer Outlook 365 e-mail account, which basically is the linchpin for making all of your Microsoft 365 data, tools, and apps talk to each other and synchronize properly across devices. I basically treat these two email accounts as one – I get work emails in both of these accounts because occasionally messages sent through my web provider get blocked because it is a third-party email tool. And thus, when that happens, I switch to my Outlook account from Microsoft to send and receive emails from that client or vendor. But when I do my daily morning triage as well as my periodic reviews throughout the day as part of my time-based regimen, I process all the emails in both of those accounts like they were a single work account that was fully integrated.

Now I also have a personal Gmail account that I have been using for about a decade. Because I primarily have been using the accounts above for work emails, I am mostly using that Gmail account for personal emails. Thus, if you are one of my close family members or friends, you are most likely sending me emails in Gmail.

But here is an interesting wrinkle that I’d like you to consider – I also have an active but very old Yahoo email account. It was my first Internet email account and is easily more than 25 years old. And when I first started using this account, I was pretty much using it for everything – some work, some personal, as well as whenever I signed up for something online – purchases, subscriptions, information requests, and more. And guess what that lead to? A whole bunch of junk and spam coming into that account specifically.

So when I started that new Gmail account, I had an idea: why not just keep the Yahoo account and use that for all my Internet sign ups? Thus, I can keep the junk and spam mostly out of my work accounts and my primary personal account. If I sign up for or purchase anything on the web, I am most likely using that Yahoo account for those activities. And it has effectively become my default junk/spam filter account!

I check the Yahoo account about once a week (unless I’m expecting something I’m looking for to come in), and I bet I’m getting more than 1000 messages every week in that account. But when I check it, I quickly just page through what has come in, and if I see something I need to keep, I forward that email to either my work or my personal account as appropriate. But now, that makes ME the sender – not the potential spammer. And once I’ve moved the two or three messages I was looking for (out of more than 1000!), I can simply use the “Select All” button and then delete all of them.

This allows me to keep my highest focus on my work account followed by my personal account, while having a place for all of those Internet transactions that are so common these days (but might also be the reason you are now getting quite a bit of junk and spam messages!) If you still have an old Yahoo or AOL account, I’d recommend you keep it and use it the way I just described.

AND YES, the video shared a few times already in this chapter also discusses the “4-wide” e-mail account strategy starting at about 7:25 in the video: https://youtu.be/9Co_jWsgCuk

Have you watched this video yet!?!  (It is clearly about far more than just unsubscribe!)

And with all of the strategies in this chapter, hopefully you can greatly reduce both the amount of unnecessary junk/spam messages coming into your primary inboxes as well as the amount of time you are spending on these nuisance items.

One really cool thing to consider – through the proper use and set up of your Outlook Rules as well as your Filters and Notification settings in Gmail, you can both be notified when your most important messages are coming in, while also simultaneously knocking out the annoying junk/spam that is coming in automatically. These tools can help you greatly on both sides of that equation – identifying the most important messages while deleting the worst!

So let’s finish this up by tying this all together, and then providing you with a big batch of bonus video tips and strategies…

Chapter 8: You now have the CORE of the Taming E-mail System

Have you realized that you now have a fundamentally different way to process and manage your email, as well as all of your other normal workplace inputs?

You will now hopefully start your day not in your inbox, but instead in your calendar and task list, so that you can put your email in the proper perspective and priority compared to your time and your key projects and activities/tasks.

When you do get into that email inbox a few moments later, if you open the email, you will decide what you need to do next. If the thing you need to do next is something that you can handle quickly, you will do that right now. If not, it will become a new item on your task list or calendar.

And then you might possibly label it or “keyword” it before filing it or deleting it, knowing with confidence you can find it if you need it again later using Search and/or Filters. And, from this point forward, you will be able to keep your primary inbox clean of clutter and “undone” items.

Once you get done processing those new emails at the start of the day, why not use the same basic strategy to process all your other inputs too – voicemail, snail mail, text messages, instant messages, documents and e-documents, and more? Thus, regardless of format, if it is quick, you will deal with it now, and if it is not quick, you will put it on your task list or calendar for later prioritized processing. and then, you will either put it away or throw it away.

And then, you might do one more quick adjustment to your task list to make sure you haven’t made it too much to handle in your available time today. And now it is time to get to work!

If there is nothing on your calendar, you’ll get to work on that task list, until it is time to either go to your next appointment or go back and check your email again (following your time-based regimen that you are now following).

And yes, if you get one of your automated notifications that you received an important or urgent message (possibly from one of your most important people), you can certainly stop what you’re doing and look at that new important item right now.

And of course, if something is “on fire” – you are dealing with an active crisis – you won’t do any of those things above; you will instead keep your focus on the crisis at hand until the crisis has been adequately and appropriately dealt with.

You have now set up your standard automated responses – many of them in “pushbutton” format using signatures, quick parts, or templates. And now many of your emails meet that “couple minutes or less” rule, so you will just handle them right now!

You have set up your rules in Outlook and your filters and notifications in Gmail so that you know when important messages are coming in and important people are trying to reach you, but also simultaneously and automatically knocking out many of the junk and spam messages from the repeating spammers. That combination will keep you appropriately responsive to critical and important stuff, while not getting distracted constantly by every little thing coming in (SQUIRREL!)

And when you come back in tomorrow morning (maybe after grabbing that 1st cup of coffee!), you can run the system again… and again… and again. Now you will hopefully be checking your messages after your calendar and task list each day, you will be looking at your inbox less times per day (while still responding quickly to the very important and urgent items), while looking at your new messages and other input items only once before taking a smart action (rather than 3 to 7 times like the average user!) You will do so much better than someone that doesn’t know either your strategy or your really cool technical tips! (But hey, you could share these tips!)

And how much time will all of this save you over the next week, month, year, and career?

No one – myself included – will be perfect at this. I don’t even want you to try. Just

be better

at all of this – because the closer you are to following this smart and simple system for managing your email and other inputs, the more time you will get back for your most important work and/or your personal life, and the less stress and distraction you will suffer from. This is your system now. I have given it to you. Use it to your best success!

And read the bonus chapter, Maybe we should talk about this?, to discuss ways that you can get the other members of your team to take advantage of these skills and help improve your email productivity and reduce your distraction (and theirs!) even more.

Now, if you go to the next page, you will find that I have given you a whole slew of email-related tip videos on other technical tips and tools that will save you even more time in both Outlook and Gmail. You have the overview of the structure and the most critical technical tips in your toolbox already – the next pages will give you access to even more technical tips in your software that will make you even better at email processing, efficiency, organization and management.

###

And, depending on how well this Taming E-mail mini-guide performs, you might be seeing following mini-guides on more strategic use of Microsoft Outlook (at the project, people, and task management level), a very similar guide specifically for Google Workspace users, a guide for getting more productivity and less distraction from your smart phone and tablet devices, and maybe even future mini-guides on more effective staff and team meetings and better email etiquette and communication.

Make it worth my while – please consider doing some of the “pay it forward/pay it back” strategies shared after your video list and bonus chapter, and I will keep creating more of these guides for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for your continuing support! Please let me know if you have any specific comments about this guide in particular: randy@randalldean.com.

Using “Delayed Send” in Both Outlook & Gmail (6.5 min.): https://youtu.be/3YT-caFXNwM

Setting up Group Distribution Lists in both Outlook & Gmail (12 min.): https://youtu.be/duhaxwGt96A

Get to Your Folders Faster in Outlook, Windows, and even Gmail (10 min.): https://youtu.be/Fujr1B21pHI

The Compelling Case for Shorter E-mails (4 min.): https://youtu.be/vRYYkJQKbsA

How we manage e-mail, projects, and tasks “backwards”: https://youtu.be/THtjMGAV9ko

Outlook E-mail Tip Videos:

Setting up “Out of Office” Autoreply in Outlook (5 min.): https://youtu.be/VClXUdyQ7WM

“Code Wording” e-mail subject lines in Outlook (3 min.): https://youtu.be/Q_a6O08dRN8

How to use the Categories (as Labels!) in Outlook (19 min.): https://youtu.be/sV4pjjLZl_k

Get to Your Outlook E-mail Folders Faster (when you have opened too many!) https://youtu.be/TH-L8MGLeRQ

New Changes to Outlook Search (6 min.): https://youtu.be/DYcDTOf781M

My Favorite “Right Click” E-mail Options in Outlook (9 min.): https://youtu.be/BJaNieVTOww

Continued on next page ...

Microlearning (2.5 Minutes): A “Right Click” Trick if Using Outlook Signatures as Templates: https://youtu.be/VTfgxIVZ3xY

New Top Ribbon Toolbar Widget in Outlook (3 Min.): https://youtu.be/oCsDDIQodD4

How to switch from icons to words for Outlook functions on bottom of screen (1 minute): https://youtube.com/shorts/zkPg_WOaliE?feature=share

Have you tried the new “Dictate” button in Outlook e-mail and Word? (3.5 min.): https://youtu.be/6xTI3ykudpc

Gmail Tip Videos:

Using Gmail Templates in Settings for “Push Button” Auto-response Messages (7.5 min.): https://youtu.be/I9NtJFdHKrg

Setting up and using “Out of Office” Autoreply in Gmail (4 min.): https://youtu.be/WxVJaOulrnA

New in Gmail: Sound Notifications for Incoming E-mail (4 min.): https://youtu.be/7y5W4ZOp0og

‘Code Wording” e-mail subject lines in Gmail (3 min.): https://youtu.be/ZObxcxjiS1Y

Gmail Setting Changes: The New “Quick Settings” Panel (5 min.): https://youtu.be/Dpb2XsIcxR0

Bonus Chapter: Maybe we should just talk about this???

Those darn people!

In an ideal world, you would have one heck of a system now for managing your email if you could simply follow the strategies from this point forward. But I will be the first to admit that there is a wildcard that can throw you off the best laid plans and systems: Human Beings!

Other people truly don’t care about your systems and routines for enhanced productivity. All they truly care about is that their stuff gets done first, because of course, their stuff is always the most important stuff. And before you think that is a bad behavior, how many times have you thought that your stuff is the most important stuff!?

Nearly everyone in a professional environment is most focused on getting their own stuff done first and keeping their projects moving. It’s very rare to find someone that actually understands that their work is only a part of the bigger work of the organization, and that it is entirely possible what they are working on is not the most important thing right now. And what that means is that people will often be patently unreasonable and highly interruptive if they want something of theirs looked at or worked on more quickly.And that might fly in the face of your best laid plans for how you’re going to manage your email, your inputs, and your day (and you’ve probably been guilty of this with your co-workers too!)

But that doesn’t mean you have no ability whatsoever to positively change the prevailing firm culture. First, let them know that you are changing your email processing habits and explain both how and why. You might get quite a few followers, because they too don’t want to be driven crazy by email and all the other inputs.

And beyond that, I believe you can take several other tangible steps to greatly improve your internal culture when it comes to email processing, efficiency, and courtesy. Let’s discuss a couple:

I want you to think about some of the tips we covered about reducing email distraction in the previous chapters. Both Outlook through its Rules and Gmail through its Filters and Settings can allow you to have certain messages “pop” if they contain certain words, come from certain people, or are somehow marked important. That can lead to a great advantage for many work groups or teams. Here is how:

Hold a meeting with your primary work group or team. Explain to them that not every email that is sent is critically important or urgent. And if they are going to send an email that is critically important or urgent, maybe they could either, a) mark it as important, or b) use certain agreed-upon code words at the beginning of the email subject line indicating the priority -- words like “ASAP”, “Critical”, or “Urgent”. By putting these words at the very beginning of the subject line, you would have the ability to set up a rule or a filter to highlight that those emails need special attention. And thus, the software can be set up to automatically notify you (and also the other members of your team!) when these higher priority messages come in.

Now I fully understand that there are some people that will greatly overuse these tools, the code words, and the system. There are some people that by nature seem to mark everything they send as urgent or important. When you have this meeting, remind everyone: “If everything you send is marked urgent or important, then nothing that you send is urgent or important!”

Another strong tip: If there is something due (task, deliverable, response, etc.) contained within the email, put that due date and time right at the start of the subject line: “Due by 6/28 at 3 PM.” Or “Please respond in detail by tomorrow.” This way, the recipient knows that there is an active item that they need to address by or before that date and time.

And one simple final recommendation: Can we all please start writing much better subject lines?

How about including something in the subject line about what the email is related to/about? Maybe you could consider putting the name of the project, person, client, vendor, activity, event, or related task in that subject line! (That will help out everyone involved in the process!)

Now obviously, these are just a couple very brief email etiquette, subject-line-related recommendations. There are obviously many more e-mail etiquette topics that could be discussed – unnecessary use of BCC, overusing “reply all”, composing emails covering far too many topics and people, not clearly listing who owns what and when it is due, and so much more.

I will very likely make all of this part of a future mini-guide similar to this one – completely focused on effective email structure and etiquette. However, many of these tips and topics are frankly no-brainers that can be solved with a little bit of forethought, consideration, and group/team discussion.

So here is my last recommendation in this very short chapter about people: Could you consider having a meeting with the people on your primary work groups, teams or possibly your whole department, with the entire focus of that meeting being dedicated to which communication tools you should use when and why. When should you send an email? When should you send a text? When should you pick up the phone and call someone? When should you go find someone and have a one-on-one face-to-face conversation? When should you hold a Zoom or Teams meeting? When should you hold an in-person meeting? And WHY.

I have found over the last 18 years working with organizations large and small; for profit and nonprofit; government, university, association and corporate; crossing multiple generations, genders, races, and more, and I will let you know there is one consistency I have seen across all of these groups: there is no consistency!

Almost every person has their own preferred communication tools, and they often overuse those tools to the point of hindering team cohesiveness, communication and productivity. Some people love email too much. Some people love text too much. Some people pick up the phone too much. Some people call too many meetings. Some people don’t call enough meetings. Some people call meetings that could have been a well-written e-mail. Others send e-mails that should clearly be meetings!

And all of these tendencies and behaviors over time will not only hurt team performance and productivity, it will also greatly hinder team cohesion. This is because one person’s preference might drive yet another person crazy. “Why did they send that as an email? That should’ve been a meeting!” Or, “why did they call a meeting? That could’ve been an email!” Or, “why didn’t they just come talk to me face-to-face? We could have resolved this right then and there.”

However, if you and your primary workgroup, team, or department (and maybe even your key clients or vendors!) had this discussion, I am betting that all of you will be able to work better together, with more common expectations and better communication amongst each other – thus driving each other just a little bit less crazy every day! And maybe just maybe you could eliminate or at least reduce some of the unnecessary passive aggressive, highly rude, inconsiderate, and/or highly confusing and frustrating actions and behaviors that pretty much all humans have been known to commit time immemorial.

I made a short 2-minute video about this meeting as well as one other meeting that I highly recommend all work groups or teams consider having to help improve team cohesiveness, communication quality, and performance. Check out that video here: https://youtu.be/zyGZBto7LMs

So when you think about it, I am basically recommending that people make some effortto communicate better – more succinctly and more directly, using the proper communications tool for the situation, hopefully without all of the drama. 

I think we can all agree to that.