Darwinian email management: Delete or die

Photo courtesy Flickr user Dvortygirl

(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY Advice abounds about how to manage your email, from etiquette tips to advice on nuking your inbox and declaring email bankruptcy. If you sometimes have trouble staying on top of your incoming mail, here's an approach that might work wonders for you.

Developer Matt Gemmell blogs about his "realistic" email management technique in which he lays out a roadmap for how he replies to email. Family, for example, he responds to immediately. Clients get a reply within 24 hours. He deletes a broad swath of email right away, including social network notifications, newsletters, and press releases.

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Interestingly, he advocates an approach which he likens to a Darwinian adaptation: If an email doesn't immediately seem useful or something you need to respond to, simply delete it. Don't keep it around. If it turns out to have been important enough to warrant a response anyway, fear not. You'll see it a second time. Specifically, he says:

"If it doesn't immediately and obviously make you feel you should reply to it within the next day or two, it's not that important to you. Archive or delete it. If it's sufficiently important to someone else, that person will expend effort to make it come back to you. If the email does not come back to you, you would have wasted your time replying to it. Win-win."

This is an interesting approach, but clearly it won't work for everyone or for all kinds of careers. For example, as a writer I obviously can't delete press releases; they're critical to my job. And the Darwinian advice to delete emails which aren't obviously important might require some fine-tuning, since you don't want to develop a reputation as someone who is unresponsive or uncommunicative. But in principle, it's a sound strategy. What do you think? Sounds off in the comments.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Dvortygirl

[AlchemyRider]

I believe that the key contributor to a manageable inbox is for all of us to put a more thought into the need to send an email before filling in the "CC" box and/or clicking on "Reply All," "Forward," and "Send."

If we all stopped sending email that has no relevance or importance to the recipients (I'm thinking Cover My Butt emails here but there are other examples) we would have less inbox dross to wade through.

[kochikvp]

I've heard this one (many times) before, but have never been able to agree with it. Our time is certainly very important and (as others have pointed out) it's certainly tempting to ignore or delete mails that appear to be unimportant. However I think we also need to keep another important point in mind: if somebody took the trouble to write us an email, we owe it to that person to at least read the mail and respond (perhaps with one or two words). This of course applies only to mails sent by a human and directly to one's id, not to automatic updates, mass mails etc.

[Media_Mark]

I guess it all comes down to the size of your ego, and how self-important you perceive yourself to be... And by the way, how will you know when you win the UK Lottery?

[wkb4447]

The first thing I do is click on "Delete All", the box at the top of my inbox. Then I pick out those few emails I want/need to read. Everything else goes away.

[subaruchick99]

Why do I get so excited when I see these articles promising email management only to be bitterly disappointed once I read them - while the points about being polite, being assertive in asking people for clarification and ditching emails you get "subscribed to" and 2-line overview brief read are all highly sensible, this article simply fails to realise what real business life is like.

At 130-150 business relevant emails per day every day I am ruthless in managing them - immediately reply, delete, delegate or file for action according to urgency/project etc, use rules for efficienty & automatic filing, but the simple reality is at that volume even 1min per email is approaching 3hrs and I aim to empty my mail box each and every day. As far as not checking your junk mail - that is a dangerous one, luckily my junk mail is never much more than 20 but as our overzealous company spam filter often puts customer emails in junk, I fail to check it daily at my peril and at least once a month I have to dig out an archive item even from many years ago as email has become a company repository of invaluable info so I do file probably 30-50% of everything, you can never predict what is going to be needed years down the line (I guess this might only apply for companies where you stay in one job for a long time or it is a small company where early members are psuedo company historians also.)

Given this is not the only article I have read recently in this and other digests with a similarly depressing lack of understanding of what business really face I can only presume that the authors of many of these email articles are journalist rather than business people running companies. At 130-150 per day I am at the low end of volume with some of my industry friends averaging 300 per day. Please real and practical suggestions for the "Volume Monster" - it's the real problem, not how quickly you should reply to your friends and family vs your customers.

[bettinm]

Dear subaruchick99,
I completely understand and have often found myself in the same position of digging up historical email strings from years-gone-by to retrieve information, or remind myself and colleagues of the details surrounding particular decisions or the outcomes. I also find the advise to not respond very impractical for all parties involved. Obviously, there are courtesy emails which do not require a response. However, failing to respond to another person's email may mean their project is delayed, often interfering with my own long-term needs.

In regards to volume, I've found myself discouraging inefficient group email routings all around. When they are needed, we've utilized specific administrative assistants (as available) to review those routings and forward to appropriate individuals. Within my own team, I've also discouraged using emails to communicate information which can wait for a staff meeting, utilizing email for discussions which are better suited to a face-to-face meeting or conference call. I've never found myself responsive to the email task lists. Instead, I find a medium sized white board in my office helps me track projects, including status. My company also started utilizing Office Communicator a few years ago. This can be both useful and an interference, depending on the judgement of the persons initiating contact. I did not extend this tool to most of my staff as I frankly didn't believe they'd be using it for business most of the time.

None of those items are new or unique. I hope they trigger some ideas to help you, though!

[dcalbrecht]

Short, sweet and to the point. Good points in the article.

First a comment; sorry it is NOT rude, but the truth of the matter, my time IS more important than anyone else's (to me) and their's is more important to them! The trick is to get me to make time for what YOU think is important!

As for sorting e-mail, just do it the same as you would snail mail. You glance at the front page/title bar and determine if it is worth reading/pursuing. If not, Bye-bye! This is why the title of the e-mail is so important now! You have about 7 to 10 words, maximum, to get me to engage and open that puppy up to read it.

And really, does ANYONE open unsolicited e-mails for insurance/lottery winnings/ found money deals or such? I guess they must to actually scam people occasionally!

Regards,
DA

[DmacZ]

With Gmail offering 10GB of free storage + their superior search/filter options why not just keep everything (except spam - including social network notifications). I use a view/filter to identify emails that are larger than 1 MB and simply archive those, or save the attachment and delete. With this approach I would need decades of emails to reach 10GB. I have 6+ years of email that I can sort and find exchanges from a long time ago.

[flupher]

I'd say that's the epitome of rude, i.e., assuming your time is more valuable than someone else's.

[glenn crooks]

wow imagine that new innovative idea of deleting worthless email.

next someone might even come up with BLOCKING addresses---I can only imagine

[Stevefoxy]

If I had not paid attention to my e-mail moments ago I would not have seen, read, and benefited from this well timed, tightly written, and useful article. While it is difficult to apply my speed reading training to e-mail (text online) I think it helps me to make up my mind faster as to what to keep and what to delete. E-mail management is my responsibility. If I am negative about the content and outcomes associated with my in-box it means I should not have opened the app to begin. Attitude toward is key. Thanks and keep it up. Well done.

[KarachiFrog]

Precisely..CBS MoneyWatch falls within the definition of "social network notifications, newsletters, and press releases". I open it perhaps once a fortnight, on those rare occasions (like now) that I have the time. If we all followed Mr Johnson's guidelines, we would never read it, ever. That being the case, why did he waste his time writing it at all. His time would have been better spent unscribing...