Inbox Zero Attained!
March 18, 2008
Many of you know who know me, know I am a fan of Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero concept. Those of you who know me even better, know that my inbox often has hundreds of email messages I just haven’t acted on. The last time I attained Inbox Zero was in December of 2007. Yesterday I had enough and acted on EVERY email in my inbox (if I didn’t act on it I deleted it). There was some carnage, so if you emailed me between December 2007 and yesterday and didn’t get a response, you might consider resending. But before you do please take a moment to think about why you send email messages. Here are a few email rules I wish people would adopt:
- Don’t CC Me, unless you indicate why you are doing so and what you expect the recipient to do in the email.
- Be Direct, include the action you require from the recipient in the subject line.
- Don’t Forward, a load of crap like pictures of babies with inappropriate t-shirts.
- Include your Contact Info, specifically include your name and phone number on EVERY email.
- Don’t Send Press Releases, specifically ‘there is a company you might be interested in…’
- Don’t Be Passive, i.e. we should get together sometime, instead be direct, ‘lets go to lunch on Thursday.’
- Don’t Be General, i.e. sending a message to a list of 100 people asking, ‘could someone do me a favor and…’
Feel free to add your own rules to the comments:
