TheGmailGenius

13 common email habits that hurt more than help

Top business and career coaches discuss what NOT to do in email. One piece of clear and simple advice from the article: “You should never give hard news or share tough decisions through email, yet it happens all the time.”

A mindful guide to email in 20 minutes a day

A thorough read from Leo Babauta of ZenHabits on how he trained himself to limit checking his email along with his step-by-step process. Leo’s former habits are recognizable to many of us. He writes: “It used to be that I would check email first thing in the morning, before getting out of bed. But I realized that this was a procrastination method that felt productive, that was a way for me to postpone meditating and important work.”

Why deleting your emails could cost you $100s each year

Not so fast on the delete button! The Penny Hoarder has a write up of an app that scans your email for receipts that might be eligible for price savings.

Inbox Exposed: Willo O’Brien, Speaker and Business Coach  

the inbox. We’re asking smart thinkers to give us a peek inside their inboxes, share tips, ideas, gripes, and everything in between.

Holistic business coach Willo O’Brien spends her days facilitating and supporting creative entrepreneurs through online programs, workshops, and individual consulting. Using her own business journey, she offers other business owners emotional and strategic support to help them thrive while working for themselves. She shared some of her best tips for email management, and we’ve excerpted a few below:

What’s the worst email behavior you tend to see in people and what should they do instead?

When clients come to me feeling overwhelmed, it’s often because they have no structure, boundaries, or systems in place – which is a recipe for chaos.

We must consciously curate the information we’re receiving, otherwise we’ll be blasted by a firehose and find ourselves drowning in a sea of distraction. This depletes our precious mental, emotional, and physical resources – which we need to make all the other important decisions in our life!

You recently did a podcast episode about email overwhelm. Putting aside the tools you recommend, what are the one or two mindset changes people should make to avoid email overwhelm?  

Like any relationship, if you’re not setting clear boundaries and honoring yourself (your time, energy, and focus), email can begin to feel invasive and become a belabored chore. This is when resentment grows, interest and attention wanes, and next thing you know, your inbox is an overwhelming mess you want nothing to do with.

The first step is to define the purpose of email in your life or business.

• What are the emails you want to see coming in?
• How do you want it to feel?
• What actions are you committed to?
• What’s the intended result of said actions?

With that purpose in mind, clarify your goals and your process to reach those goals.

• Identify how your business functions (e.g. the sales/customer acquisition process, customer support emails, hiring and onboarding process, etc).
• What’s your goal with those emails?
• Clarify the process for each by creating a quick outline* that tracks the processes involved for each, and scenarios for various outcomes.

*Remember, this doesn’t have to be complex! You actually already know this process intuitively, you just may have never written it down.

Read the full interview over here!