Cheat Strategy 1: Get Out of Your Inbox
When you are spending too much time in your mailbox, it’s probably because you are spending too much time in your mailbox.
You read it right, and no, this is not a typo. Let me explain:
The biggest mistake solopreneurs make is to continuously check their mailboxes. And since there is always new mail arriving, you keep spending time there instead of doing the things you should do.
Worst thing: by acting like this, you are letting other people decide what you work on, instead of setting your priorities yourself.
Luckily, there’s a better approach, which will take about 30 minutes or less:
Step 1: check it twice
Read your emails two, maybe three times a day instead of checking continuously.
The best times to do this are late in the morning and late in the afternoon. That way, you can focus on your most important tasks first.
Of course, your schedule depends on your situation. But even if you want to provide good customer service, you don’t have to be available all day.
Step 2: prioritize
Don’t answer the emails just yet. Only decide what you need to do with them – in other words: Prioritize.
- Use the DANS method:
- D– Delete the emails you no longer need.
- A– Archive the ones you want to keep and label them so you can find them easily.
- N -You only do something Now, when it takes a few minutes or less, like a quick response.
- S – The messages take you longer should be scheduled or snoozed until the moment you will work on them.
- Schedule time in your calendar to work on the snoozed / scheduled emails.
By the way: my advice is to schedule them, not snooze. Scheduling forces you to describe exactly what the action is (which is essential if you want to cut out procrastination).
Learn how to schedule a task right from your Gmail in the 50x Smarter Gmail module. - After you have prioritized your emails, go work on the things that need to be done. That might be answering some really urgent and important email, by the way. But it might also be something else.
The most important thing here is that you stop checking your email all day.
I know it will take some practice to get out of your inbox. There are plenty of tips that can help you do this in 50x Smarter.