Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

How your phone can make your email inbox more productive

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Christopher S Penn
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Mail on the iPod TouchI get a lot of email. When I came back from vacation this morning, I faced hundreds and hundreds of emails, from status reports to pitches and everything in between. How did I whittle this down to something manageable?

When I face a lot of email on the desktop client, there are a lot of choices – do I label it? Flag it? File it? Delete it? Archive it? Should I respond to this now? Should I put this on my calendar?

Too much choice can paralyze.

To solve this, I gave myself less choice.

It’s simple. I start by checking my mail on my phone. I never respond to email on my phone because frankly, that’s a pain in the ass. Even on the much vaunted iPhone, the keyboard is still too small to be practical for responding to stuff in volume. Instead, I use it as a first-pass filter and have four verbs to apply to each message based on what the GMail mobile interface lets me do quickly:

  • Leave it alone
  • Star it
  • Delete it
  • Archive it

Without an option to reply, without all the other clutter, and just four basic verbs, I can clean up my inbox very quickly and productively. This lets me prioritize as well, so that when I do get back to my desktop email client, I have a clear list of the stuff I want to tackle first and in what order.

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Comments

11 responses to “How your phone can make your email inbox more productive”

  1. TimWalker Avatar
    TimWalker

    This is a terrific idea — quickly cuts the pile down to size.

    The folks I know who have perpetually-overstuffed inboxes tend to get bogged down in thinking of Big Answers to everything, instead of getting things triaged quick-and-dirty.

    Reply
  2. TimWalker Avatar
    TimWalker

    This is a terrific idea — quickly cuts the pile down to size.

    The folks I know who have perpetually-overstuffed inboxes tend to get bogged down in thinking of Big Answers to everything, instead of getting things triaged quick-and-dirty.

    Reply
  3. Daniel Johnson, Jr. Avatar
    Daniel Johnson, Jr.

    I recently printed out GMail's keyboard shortcuts to help me better wade through my email. It has helped tremendously.

    Reply
  4. Daniel Johnson, Jr. Avatar
    Daniel Johnson, Jr.

    I recently printed out GMail's keyboard shortcuts to help me better wade through my email. It has helped tremendously.

    Reply
  5. Max Avatar
    Max

    Fully agree, do something with it, and move on.

    Brian Tracy (famous get what you want type guy) talks about only ever handling a piece of paper once. Do something with it once only. The same should apply to email.

    I always look an email and think, if I did nothing with this, would it matter. If the answer is no (it would not matter). I delete it.

    And short, curt answers are often better.

    Don't forget about not checking email 1000 times a day either, why not just check it once an hour or something like that.

    Like I could do that though. lol

    Reply
  6. Max Avatar
    Max

    Fully agree, do something with it, and move on.

    Brian Tracy (famous get what you want type guy) talks about only ever handling a piece of paper once. Do something with it once only. The same should apply to email.

    I always look an email and think, if I did nothing with this, would it matter. If the answer is no (it would not matter). I delete it.

    And short, curt answers are often better.

    Don't forget about not checking email 1000 times a day either, why not just check it once an hour or something like that.

    Like I could do that though. lol

    Reply
  7. chelpixie Avatar
    chelpixie

    I never answer email on the go unless it's urgent, but I'm constantly culling what email comes in so there's less to deal with later.

    Reply
  8. Chel Wolverton Avatar
    Chel Wolverton

    I never answer email on the go unless it's urgent, but I'm constantly culling what email comes in so there's less to deal with later.

    Reply
  9. Phillip Avatar
    Phillip

    Oh now this is news to me! I wasn't aware of this option from google so this should help quite a bit to trim down my inbox. I like that I can do this on the go like you said when standing in line somewhere, etc. thanks for the tip!

    Reply
  10. Phillip Avatar
    Phillip

    Oh now this is news to me! I wasn't aware of this option from google so this should help quite a bit to trim down my inbox. I like that I can do this on the go like you said when standing in line somewhere, etc. thanks for the tip!

    Reply
  11. Phillip Avatar
    Phillip

    Oh now this is news to me! I wasn't aware of this option from google so this should help quite a bit to trim down my inbox. I like that I can do this on the go like you said when standing in line somewhere, etc. thanks for the tip!

    Reply

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