I'm thinking about doing a post on this, but I think I've probably got to get better at it myself before I can preach it to anyone else.
I am checking my WCI email for the first time in 24 hours after waking up after a late shift. There are 68 messages waiting for me. I was able to delete 34 of them without opening them in just a couple of minutes.
While responding to those 16 and completing those 6 tasks, I received 11 more emails.
Doing this required about two hours of time. Multiply that by 7 days, and that's 14 hours (although I don't get as many emails on weekends). No wonder I'm swamped when I come back from a 5 day trip and feel like it is impossible to go on a 10 day trip.
Any tips other than hiring someone to sort through my emails (which I think wouldn't save much time at all) or stop responding to readers (which I enjoy and think is important to our main mission)? I'd like to get WCI to the point where I spend < 15 hours a week on it, but I can't spend 14 hours doing emails and still write blog posts, do podcasts, spend time on forums, write books, make videos etc and be anywhere near that number.
Surely I'm not the only one out there with an email problem (and this doesn't include personal email). Any tips?
I am checking my WCI email for the first time in 24 hours after waking up after a late shift. There are 68 messages waiting for me. I was able to delete 34 of them without opening them in just a couple of minutes.
- I forwarded to my staff to take care of 1
- Suckered into opening 4
- Needed to read but not do anything 5
- Do something about 6
- Respond 16
While responding to those 16 and completing those 6 tasks, I received 11 more emails.
- I was able to delete 7 of those without opening.
- One required a response and one required me to do an additional task.
Doing this required about two hours of time. Multiply that by 7 days, and that's 14 hours (although I don't get as many emails on weekends). No wonder I'm swamped when I come back from a 5 day trip and feel like it is impossible to go on a 10 day trip.
Any tips other than hiring someone to sort through my emails (which I think wouldn't save much time at all) or stop responding to readers (which I enjoy and think is important to our main mission)? I'd like to get WCI to the point where I spend < 15 hours a week on it, but I can't spend 14 hours doing emails and still write blog posts, do podcasts, spend time on forums, write books, make videos etc and be anywhere near that number.
Surely I'm not the only one out there with an email problem (and this doesn't include personal email). Any tips?
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