Maintaining Inbox Zero: No Emails in Your Inbox

"Inbox Zero" was a dream that began to look realistic when I decided to separate my emails into tiers: Chatter notifications, Basecamp notifications and everything else. When Chatter notifications were all that I was seeing in my inbox, it was easy to empty my inbox on a daily basis. But the illusion of having responded to everything faded very quickly as the number of unread emails piled up in a separate folder lurking just beneath my inbox.

Finally, to dispel the illusion and to actually respond to all incoming email, I took control of my inbox by making one simple decision. That decision is simply to check my email just twice a day, once in the morning and again in the evening. And now I am able to consistently meet a 24-hour response time to emails during weekdays.

Implementing the decision required just a few major behavior changes:

• Schedule 90 mins per session to handle email. Time not used in a session can be reallocated to other activities.
• Spend no more than 6 mins responding to an email. If more time is required, flag the email for follow-up. As a courtesy, after flagging an email for follow-up, I generally reply to the sender to let him or her know that I have received the email and need more time to craft a full response.
• Once read or flagged, either move the email into another folder or delete it.

The point of this change was to increase productivity by reducing stress, anxiety and workplace distractions from two things: constantly switching into and out of Outlook, and worrying about unread emails.

If you try this or are already doing something similar, have you been able to maintain inbox zero? Or does your job demand a different way to handle email? While I am far from completing all of my tasks on a day-to-day basis, I take comfort in knowing that I can at least respond to all emails that come my way. After all, communication is a key component of everyone's work.

Tip: To follow through with eliminating email distractions, turn off email notifications in Outlook, on your tablet and on your smartphone.

Tip: The articles below may provide additional perspectives on handling email:

• Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload
• Empty your Inbox: Process and organize your email more efficiently
• Managing Email Effectively
• SXSW Killed My Inbox Zero: Email Lessons From The Front Lines Of Tech(sas)

I Share, Therefore I Work

One of my staff made an off-hand remark to me, "No one knows what you've been doing lately." After I got over the initial shock of the message, I immediately suppressed my inner voice that was saying, I don't know what you've been doing either. I've heard that part of leadership is putting a good filter on that inner voice.

But more importantly, I started to explore this troubling statement more deeply as a symptom of a more fundamental, pervasive problem.

From the situation, I deduced the following:

1. My staff member doesn't know what I'm doing. (This is a euphemism, because another way to say this is that my staff member doesn't think I'm working.)
2. This is likely because my staff member has not seen or heard of any productive activity that can be attributed to me.
3. Obviously (or perhaps not so obviously), I have been working.
4. So, why doesn't my staff member know that I've been working? Simple: I haven't updated him.

You may jump to the easy and reasonable question, "So, why haven't you updated him?" My excuses would be equally easy and reasonable:

• I manage 10 staff, including 4 direct reports, overseeing quality control of our products and support of personal and enterprise technology in the workplace
• I manage a CRM implementation project with 10 team members having a May 13 deadline
• I manage an online admissions application project with 7 team members having an April 30 deadline
• I manage a customer and partner single sign-on project with 2 team members, institutional partners and outside consultants having a June 30 deadline
• I manage countless unmet needs and high expectations coming from all departments, including my own
• I am trying to hire additional staff on a tight budget to take on vast responsibilities
• Blah, blah, blah...
• In short: I have no time.

Well, now... How very self-centered of me, to say that "I have no time." Do others have more time? Probably not. What's so special about me that makes my lack of time so significant? Nothing. And if I am already time strapped, what the hell am I doing writing a blog post complaining about not having any time? Because I'm supposed to be a leader who solves departmental and organizational problems, and right now I believe we have a big problem that I am partially addressing with this post.

And that problem is inefficiency. How much time do my staff waste complaining among themselves that I'm not doing anything? How much time do my staff waste by going down one path only to find out later that I am heading in a different direction? How much productivity is lost because my staff feel lost and suffer from low morale? I don't know the magnitude, but my gut says I'd probably pop a vein if I saw the numbers.

I believe that great work comes from happy staff, and if their happiness and productivity depend on knowing what I'm doing, where I'm going and why, then I must prioritize the communication about my work, even above completion of the work itself.

Communication leads to coordination. Coordination leads to responsiveness. Responsiveness leads to adaptability. Adaptability leads to a competitive advantage that will help us not only to operate but to grow, transform and even persevere in a challenging economy and an unsettled industry.

And in a modern Web 2.0 environment that demands efficiency in all processes, including communication, meeting synchronously with each staff member or even with all my direct reports at once is simply not sustainable. The channel is too narrow, time consuming and logistically difficult to setup due to its synchronicity. But thankfully, we have an alternative channel that has completely opposite characteristics: Salesforce Chatter.

Chatter is broad, allowing me to potentially reach everyone with every post and comment. Chatter is fast because I'm typing and my audience is reading, compared to me speaking and them listening. And Chatter is easy because I can share my thoughts immediately, asynchronously without having to pull people together to gather at a specific location at a specific time.

So, I need to communicate broadly and frequently to keep my staff happy, coordinated and productive, then I believe I need to share, post and comment more on Chatter. This activity is no longer optional; it's a matter of the organization's strength and long-term survival.

You've probably heard, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" How about: If a man operates in an office and no one knows about it, did he actually work? What was the real, net value of what the man did? And who gives a Mars bar about it?

Impertio Ergo Operor. I share, therefore I work.

A Football Lesson for Higher Ed

Shiny uniforms. Full-body contact with the risk of serious concussions. A pigskin ball flying like a bullet into a tiny, moving target. Touchdown! Yes, we're talking football. And... wait, we're also talking higher ed?

I've been marveling at Greg Bedard's account of the New England Patriots' stellar no-huddle offense against the  Denver Broncos on October 7. Sure, the execution was awesome. But what struck me more about the no-huddle strategy was a lesson to be applied to higher education, the industry first and foremost on my mind. If you put aside the content (sports vs. education) and focus on the form (teamwork and competition), the Patriots have a lot more to teach than simply how to run 89 offensive plays in 60 minutes.

Bedard writes, "Just one word can be powerful." One shared word makes efficient communication. Communication is integral to coordination. Coordination maximizes organizational productivity. Productivity begets business results. Now, rinse and repeat.

Often times I catch myself using GMAT vocabulary to convey simple ideas that end up in a mental wastebasket. In football, the quarterback could replace "Flip right, double-X jet, 36 counter, naked waggle, X-7, X-quarter" with "Bama left" to signal the same play. At work, instead of "please gather the members of the steering committee for a brief meeting to efficiently discuss the latest responses from the second-choice vendor", I could say "please convene the steering committee to review __'s responses". Wow, I bet I can cut most of my emails in half!

Furthermore, businesses all talk about being nimble, agile, responsive, resilient. But how do we actually achieve that speed? Keeping things simple certainly helps. To explain how Chip Kelly sped up his Oregon Ducks, Bedard quotes Ed Dickson, "[Kelly] wants to make it easier to where you’re not thinking about anything, you’re just going fast. Make it as simple as guys can learn it so you can go really fast. That’s the key, making it simple for your players so they can play at top speed." Translated to business: Streamline processes, remove barriers and keep people focused on what's important.

So, instead of fancy quotes or clever memes, maybe one word can be used to guide my work and that of others. In my current environment, I'd say good candidates for that one word are "learn" and "teach".

Align email rules with Chatter to maximize ROI

At work, I face many regular communication challenges: some daunting, others frustrating, and still more that are just annoying.  In broad categories, some general pain points are:

• "Who has knowledge about __?"
• "Who can answer this question, __?"
• "How do I communicate this news: __?"
• "How can I tap into the collective intelligence of the organization for __?"
• "How do I work remotely with __ to accomplish __?"
• "Why am I answering the same question a second (or third, or fourth, ...) time?"

If you look at Salesforce's pitch for "Why Chatter?" you will see answers and solutions to many of these questions and problems.  And Chatter's promise of higher productivity is clearly communicated, with fewer meetings and email reduction presented as the first two benefits.  These are the promised ROI's from using Chatter.

But after reading about topics such as, "Is Email Dead?" and the ambitious Zero Email plan from visionary CEO Thierry Breton, I am beginning to believe that I can do more to lead the way toward email reduction and, if I dare to dream like Thierry Breton, internal email elimination.  If Chatter can take the place of internal email, then I believe we will be close to maximizing ROI from institutional adoption of this new communication tool.

To that end, I suddenly realized a way to align my own technology with the adoption of Chatter and elimination of email:  Create an email rule that will "hide" all non-Chatter emails by moving them into somewhere, anywhere, that's not my inbox.  As a result, the "move non-Chatter to email folder" rule was created.

The idea is simple.  In the short term, I anticipate that internal emails will be reduced and that Chatter will become the preferred method of internal communications.  So, raising visibility of Chatter activity and lowering visibility of non-Chatter are natural ways of not only preparing for the future but also accelerating our transition toward it.  If I always see Chatter first when I open Outlook, then I would be subconsciously cued and trained to use Chatter as my primary communication tool, right?

Some of my colleagues have already formed an ambitious group to tackle the challenge of defining communication protocols for Chatter.  Should the "move non-Chatter" rule be included as part of the protocol for handling Chatter?  I think it's time to convene the jury.

What do you think?  Will this rule help an organization achieve the promised ROI from adopting a social communication platform?

No Conference Room, No Problem

When I first settled into my new office, I was a bit taken aback by the fact that there was no easy way to reserve conference rooms in Outlook.  I was accustomed to being able to open my calendar and easily pull in people and rooms to determine the right combination of time and place to hold a meeting.  Instead, I was told that if I want to reserve a room I have to go through a person who is responsible for booking all of the conference rooms.  This is crazy, I thought at the time.

But all of a sudden, I reflected on this "ridiculous complication"and realized that the "problem" may actually be a blessing in disguise.  No conference room?  Great!  Let's avoid the abrupt interruption to people's days, the requirement to drop everything that people are doing just to get together and "talk it through" when a few emails (or Chatter, or Google docs with comments) would've worked as well if not better.

Part of the reflection came from a great video that a friend shared with me:  Jason Fried's convincing explanation for why work doesn't happen at work.

I remember that at my previous organization there was constant talk about "too many meetings" and "meeting management" and "getting things done", but I felt that the organization was never able to change the cultural practice of calling meetings.  In retrospect, perhaps the culture was enabled by the fact that it was so easy to get a room and setup a meeting in Outlook.  Technology could have very well been the culprit, ironically hurting productivity in the organization instead of improving it.

So... No conference room?  No problem!  In fact, we may all be better off this way.

Customer-focused? Prove It

One of the major points that The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan continuously makes is that everything a leader does and doesn't do is communicating to those around him or her.  The order in which the leader completes his tasks and schedules his meetings also speaks volumes about priorities and interests.  With that in mind, I started thinking more about one of the phrases that stick out in my mind as an important philosophy from GSC's president: "student-focused" (a.k.a. "customer-focused").

Bradt, Check and Pedraza give a very thoughtful and poignant example of how easy it is to say what sounds good and then act in a completely different manner.  Basically, the story focuses on a new CEO's plan to show up on day 1 and then immediately launch internal committees to tackle priorities.  When the CEO was asked how his actions would speak to his espoused goal of becoming more customer-focused, the CEO realized that his actions were giving the wrong message.  After reconsidering, the CEO decided to meet with key customers to understand their delights and disappointments with the company.

While it may seem like a cop-out to emulate this tactic, I think it holds a lot of water in my entry into a technology leadership role that has responsibility for providing technology services that directly impact customers, or students as the case is at GSC.  Having no direct experience as an online learner or instructional designer in the higher education industry, I have a lot of catching up to do.

So, for me personally, I plan to register for one of GSC's online leadership classes at the earliest opportunity when I start my new job, and I will take time to speak with students who are served at every single one of GSC's campuses.  I will also plan to talk to students studying at competing institutions in NH, such as UNH, KSC PSU and SNHU.

I'll close this post with a slightly modified quote (borrowed with thanks to Railsfactory) from Mahatma Gandhi that I feel helps align me with the president's goal of becoming more student-focused.

A [student] is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work - he is the purpose of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to serve him.