The Best Post-Vacation Email Hack Ever
My father-in-law is retired from a 30+ year career in banking. When he started as a 19 year-old kid, knocking on doors to collect past due car payments, he didn't have an email address or an inbox to worry about. Fast forward to the 21st century and he was working as a credit lending manager, responsible for the final review on lending decisions for multiple branches. Email was not only a thing, it was the way of work.
One day we were talking about how stressful it can be to go on vacation. Not only do you want to close the loop on any loose ends before you go, you also end up with a pile up of emails to handle when you return. My father-in-law surprised me by sharing his magical hack for the post-vacation inbox problem: When you get back, just delete everything in your inbox. That's right, email bankruptcy. It shocked me and I couldn't imagine being so bold. But his words of reassurance resonated "If it's important, they will email you again." He said he never missed anything critical. I 100% believe it.
In the past I put a lot of focus on reducing my inbox and organizing my emails. I would set tasks for myself on my daily to-do list to reduce my inbox by 200 emails a day, 1,000 per week. The stress of unread and unprocessed emails was present every time I opened Outlook. Twice a year, usually the last week of the year and just before vacation in the summer, I would put in the effort to get to inbox zero. That moment felt great (and I do mean moment since the emails never stop coming in). What a high.
As I write this there are 3,092 emails in my work email inbox and 349 of them are unread. This is intentional and I'm not stressed about it in the least. A few years ago I had a realization. The number of emails I respond to or file and delete has no correlation with my goals and achievements. Inbox zero is a vanity metric that produces a great rush of personal satisfaction, but no real business results. Putting too much focus on my inbox can easily lead to distraction from what's truly important. When you let your inbox become your to do list, you are letting others control your focus and time.
Many people are familiar with the Pareto Principle; 80% of your results will come from 20% of your actions. Apply this thinking to your incoming email. 80% of the emails you receive are not materially important to your success. Much of it requires no action (reports, corporate communications, "thanks" responses). The trick and the real hack is understanding how to focus on what's important and ignore everything else.
Qualifier: Unread doesn't mean unknown
When I say I have 349 unread emails, that isn't entirely true. As emails come in I know the sender, the subject, and a preview of the content. I know if there is an attachment or not and how big that attachment is. I use a view setting that allows for a 3 line preview of emails (full preview is too much information for me). With all of this knowledge I can easily determine if I need to handle now, later, or never without even opening the email. In my world, unread doesn't mean unknown…. it only means I didn't spend the time to open, read all the content, and take action (respond, forward, file, whatever).
With this method my inbox becomes short term storage for information. Those daily reports that I left unread? I access them from my inbox when there is a specific need but otherwise they stay untouched until auto-deleted by the email system settings. The email about an issue or progress on a project similarly stays where it is for reference.
This mindset shift of an inbox being a place for short term storage vs. a list of things to do has had a very positive effect on my level of email stress. There is no weight or negative emotion tied to unread emails or to the overall email count in my inbox. I'm liberated from my inbox.
What about email jail?
It's true. There are times when my strategy lands me in email jail, unable to send or receive email until I free up space. To help with this, make 'size' a visible field in your inbox and sent items. Weekly, sort by size and target large emails for deletion or saving. This should take no more than 5 minutes. Establish a rule in your email software that automatically deletes any emails in your inbox that are older then 90 days. It's extremely rare that any email older than 90 days has relevance to what is happening now. Whatever the thinking or conversation was back then has most certainly evolved.
What's worth saving? How to identify the 20%.
If we're saying that 20% of email has value to your business objectives, how do we identify it and what do we do with it? This is more art than science. There is no perfect system and much of deciding what is important is more of a gut feeling than an established criteria. Here are some examples of how I think about what to file, what to delete, and what to leave where it is.
What to file
Final versions of presentations used in important meetings
Emails that document a key decision
Large reports and data files that are eating space and are expected to be referenced
What to delete
The iterations of a presentation emailed between you and your boss before it was final
All but the most current email in a back-and-forth exchange
Reports that are easily accessible on shared drives
What to leave in your inbox
Emails related to active projects
Corporate communications and organization change announcements
Reports that you have use for and don’t take too much space
This is not a perfect system and I'm not going to claim that I've never had an email slip through the cracks. But I've never missed anything critical and have found what my father-in-law said is true; when things are important, people will email you again to call it to your attention.
The post-vacation strategy
I'm on vacation this week. When I return I won't be declaring email bankruptcy. I just don't have the stomach for it. Email bankruptcy is not my recommendation. My real recommendation is to change your mindset about email. Don't let it drive negative emotions and stress. Maybe most importantly don't let it drive your focus.
But wait… that’s it? No.
Mindset is great, but are you craving some actionable take-aways on how to handle your post-vacation inbox? You’re in luck because I'm a die-hard efficiency hacker. When something is too difficult or takes too much time I know I need a process. I have handy checklist that will help you to quickly manage your email inbox when you return to work so that you can get re-focused on your work priorities faster.