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PUT YOUR INBOX TO THE T.E.S.S.T.™

PUT YOUR INBOX TO THE T.E.S.S.T.™

by | Sep 16, 2017 | Productivity, Self Leadership

Email is a productivity thief.  If I could take the familiar passage from the Bible about Satan being like a roaring lion and apply it to email, it would read something like…

“Be alert, have a plan! Your enemy, Email, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someones time and attention to devour.”

Seriously!  Email kills productivity.  I’m always working my plan for email and learning from others how to make it better. While reading Personal Productivity Secrets Do what you never thought possible with your time and attention… and regain control of your life by Maura Nevel Thomas, I was intrigued by her T.E.S.S.T.™ Process for dealing with paper and emails.  Although it is similar to my process that you can read about in ZERO emails in your inbox?: How I get my Inbox to Zero and Keep it That Way, the process is excellent.  Here are the building blocks of T.E.S.S.T.™ …

“Take immediate action” – Apply the “two-minute rule.”  Can you accomplish the task in two minutes or less?  If so, do it.“Empower yourself and others” – Pass the task along to someone else.

“Empower yourself and others” —  This is a much more inspirational way of saying delegate it to a person, or people who should do would be better to do the action required.

“Suspend” – If you don’t have all the data you need, don’t do anything until you do.  You can add this to a next action to get the resources you need to determine if you or someone else should complete any work required.

“Store” – Any information you want to keep, but does not require action can be filed away in a trusted system where you can retrieve it when needed.

“Trash” – Any information you do not or will not need in the foreseeable future, DELETE. There are numerous ways that you can go about processing your email.

I think the T.E.S.S.T.™ process is a fresh and intelligent way of working through your inbox.  I would also recommend you get the book Personal Productivity Secrets to read more about the T.E.S.S.T.™ process as well as other helpful productivity teachings on topics including; attention management, mastering your technology, and controlling communication. You can read more of my thoughts on email and how to take control of your inbox in my post: Process Email Like a Productive Pro!: Three Ways Conquer Your Inbox.

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PROCESS YOUR INBOX LIKE A PRODUCTIVE PRO!

PROCESS YOUR INBOX LIKE A PRODUCTIVE PRO!

by | Mar 10, 2017 | Productivity, Self Leadership

We have all been there. It happens to even the most disciplined and productive people. You sit down at your computer, open up your email and there you are, face to screen with an overflowing inbox mixed with some valuable information that you need to know, address or respond too and mostly junk that you get to wade through to find the important stuff. It’s a big deal, and it can be overwhelming. I have good friends who have thousands of emails in their inbox—with hundreds of them unread. You may be there right now.

“Email overload blows up deadlines, leads to miscommunication and damages careers.” — Mike Song

I have been in the same place too. Then I learned some simple processes to create a more proactive email management system. I am going to share with you three ideas that can help you conquer your email inbox too.

But before we get to the three ways to be more effective and efficient with your inbox, let me share some reasons why this is so important to your productivity.

Kevin Kruse, in his most read book, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management, shares the results of a survey by the McKinsey Global Institute which shows office workers spend up to one-third of their days reading and replying to emails.

Another scientific study found that most people check email about every fifteen minutes, which adds up to thirty-two times over an eight-hour day. Wow! That’s thirty-two times your attention is distracted and interrupted by what you could be or should be accomplishing.

But that is not all! Did you know that according to one study by the University of California at Irvine, it takes an average of 25 MINUTES to resume a task after an interruption like an email? Just think how much time you can apply to more significant projects and your personal development by merely getting control of your inbox.

So, let me give you my three ways to take control of your inbox.

1. STOP checking your email, START Processing your email.

There is a big difference. When you check your email, you tend to scan it for important messages. The problem is you have not addressed what to do with all the other emails in your inbox. When you process your email, you decide on each email and put them in the appropriate place. I will show you how in my third way to take control of your inbox.

The big idea here is you only want to deal with each email one time. Read each email once, then take the appropriate action. If you don’t process your email, you are wasting precious time.

2. Process email as few times as possible!

The people who are the most productive open their inbox as few times as possible. Instead of keeping email open all the time, you should open it at specific times during the day. Personally, I try to process my inbox only three times a day. The first time is at 9 am, the second is around 11:30 am and the last time is at 4:30 pm, before I leave the office.

As a side, I do not process my inbox on my day off. I try to avoid letting as Kevin Kruse states it, “other people to put their priorities into your life,” during my Sabbath.

3. Use a system to process your email.

There are many ways; I am sure to treat your inbox. The system that I use, I learned from David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.  The idea is to ask a straightforward question of each email…Does it require action? Based on the answer, I deal with each email quickly and efficiently. If yes, there are three options; Do, Delegate, or Defer. If no, there are two options; Delete or File for reference.

Another system that I have recently discovered in the book, Personal Productivity Secrets: Do what you never thought possible with your time and attention… and regain control of your life, by Maura Nevel Thomas, is called the TESST system, a variation of the GTD system. You can read more about it in my post “Put Your Inbox to the TESST .”

So what do you do if you are currently one of those whose email inbox is out of control? I recommend you think about filing “Email Bankruptcy.” Michael Hyatt’s post, DECLARE EMAIL BANKRUPTCY AND GET A FRESH START is beneficial. Take a look, do the steps, and get a fresh start processing your inbox like a productive pro.