Inbox Zero in the office 365 ecosystem

Editor's Notes

1. Hi there, This is Sean Wallbridge coming to you from sunny Victoria, BC. I'm a proud father, drummer first, nerd second and I'm keen to learn and share what I've learned to whomever can stand the sound of my voice. I delivered this presentation in a 5 minute format at a local Non-Profit "Tool Tips" event the other day and it seemed well received. So I'm going to try and stick to that under 5 minute approach here as well.
2. When I started this presentation, I asked the folks in the room how many had , hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of emails in their inbox. While I knew a large majority would answer yes, in this particular room, EVERYONE nodded along ... and appeared exasperated. And thus it was clear to me there is still work to be done here and I've taken the time to record this presentation and share it with you. I'm certainly not the first to talk about Inbox Zero, nor the last, but if I help a few people out, that's alright by me. So. Do you have a bulging inbox? Thousands of emails? Do you have a system that you try to convince yourself and others that works? You've got colour coded labels maybe? Are you using Outlook? And by the way, while I'm going to focus on the Microsoft Office 365 space for solutions that exist to help, what I'm talking about here can easily be translated to Google Mail or other mail platforms.
3. So what is Inbox Zero? In a nutshell, Inbox Zero is having ZERO items in your inbox, at the end of the day or rather ... all the time. And why would you want this? Well, for some, it will be a feeling of achievement. And for many others, it will be for removing stress - how can you possibly feel like you have things in order if your inbox is always full? Picture for a minute where the term inbox originated? You know, one of those hard plastic inbox and outbox trays that sat on someone's desk. What if that inbox was so stacked with paper that it touched the ceiling? Wouldn't that stress you out?
4. Those that know me know well, know that I'm on a quest for an empty inbox at the end of the day ... and most days I do actually accomplish this. It is easier than you think and Outlook and other tools in the Office 365 ecosystems exist to support you in that quest. And It all comes down to this. There are 5 actions to take with an email and none of them include leaving the email in the inbox. I'll walk you through all 5 now: 1. If an email involves doing something and it will only take 2-5 minutes of your time, for crying out loud, just do it now 2. If it is garbage, delete it. If it is spam or phishing, report it 3. If you might need to refer to an email one day, Archive it. Search in Outlook and Exchange Online is fantastic these days. It is time to Trust search 4. If an email involves having a meeting or a conversation with someone, schedule it 5. If it is a task that needs doing by someone else, delegate it to them (or when appropriate, to yourself) Honestly, I could probably stop here and I'll even pause here for a second so you can screen shot this and tuck it away. These are your Inbox Zero Commandments and how you apply them will be up to you.
5. Ok, so with that... Let's dig a little deeper.
6. If an email has arrived in your inbox, you have the 5 choices to apply and the first one starts with determining whether you can simply address it right now. #1 - We have an office rule that if an email is fluttering back and forth more than 3 times, we are now simply wasting each others time (and in fact, in our office, we ALWAYS seek to "Work out Loud", something we learned using Yammer and have since moved to Microsoft Teams). So maybe consider picking up the phone rather than trying to out duel your email opponent #2 - If you are you going to reply to the message to keep the chain alive, plan on archiving the message you are replying to immediately after. And reply with Clarity. I love the format of What, So What and Now What - and I often even plunk these headers right in a message to ensure I'm communicating with clarity and so the receiving party understands as well. What is for "What are we talking about". So What is the Why as in - "Why does this matter?". And finally, Now What is for What's Next. As a business owner, I have to make dozens if decisions in a day and I love those people that spell out what the next steps are ... and better still, tell me what the recommended path is ... and I believe others would appreciate this style as well... #3 - If the message is someone asking you to do something or requires something quick and easy, let's say ... that would take under 2-5 minutes. Just do it. And if you don't have time to deal with it ... well then task it yourself or delegate it - but more on that later.
7. If an email has arrived in your inbox, you have the 5 choices to apply and the first one starts with determining whether you can simply address it right now. #1 - We have an office rule that if an email is fluttering back and forth more than 3 times, we are now simply wasting each others time (and in fact, in our office, we ALWAYS seek to "Work out Loud", something we learned using Yammer and have since moved to Microsoft Teams). So maybe consider picking up the phone rather than trying to out duel your email opponent #2 - If you are you going to reply to the message to keep the chain alive, plan on archiving the message you are replying to immediately after. And reply with Clarity. I love the format of What, So What and Now What - and I often even plunk these headers right in a message to ensure I'm communicating with clarity and so the receiving party understands as well. What is for "What are we talking about". So What is the Why as in - "Why does this matter?". And finally, Now What is for What's Next. As a business owner, I have to make dozens if decisions in a day and I love those people that spell out what the next steps are ... and better still, tell me what the recommended path is ... and I believe others would appreciate this style as well... #3 - If the message is someone asking you to do something or requires something quick and easy, let's say ... that would take under 2-5 minutes. Just do it. And if you don't have time to deal with it ... well then task it yourself or delegate it - but more on that later.
8. If an email has arrived in your inbox, you have the 5 choices to apply and the first one starts with determining whether you can simply address it right now. #1 - We have an office rule that if an email is fluttering back and forth more than 3 times, we are now simply wasting each others time (and in fact, in our office, we ALWAYS seek to "Work out Loud", something we learned using Yammer and have since moved to Microsoft Teams). So maybe consider picking up the phone rather than trying to out duel your email opponent #2 - If you are you going to reply to the message to keep the chain alive, plan on archiving the message you are replying to immediately after. And reply with Clarity. I love the format of What, So What and Now What - and I often even plunk these headers right in a message to ensure I'm communicating with clarity and so the receiving party understands as well. What is for "What are we talking about". So What is the Why as in - "Why does this matter?". And finally, Now What is for What's Next. As a business owner, I have to make dozens if decisions in a day and I love those people that spell out what the next steps are ... and better still, tell me what the recommended path is ... and I believe others would appreciate this style as well... #3 - If the message is someone asking you to do something or requires something quick and easy, let's say ... that would take under 2-5 minutes. Just do it. And if you don't have time to deal with it ... well then task it yourself or delegate it - but more on that later.
9. This one is easy. #1 - if the message doesn't matter, delete it now #2 - if the message is spam or phishing, report it and help others avoid getting these as well, much as their action of doing the same will be helping you too. By using Office 365 Email (under the hood known as Exchange Online), we are all having our messages pass through Microsoft's Forefront protection and by learning where the jerks are and the techniques they are using, we can help curb how much of this crap we get #3 - unsubscribe. Over the last 2 years I have unsubscribed from everything, everywhere. If I want information, I'll Google it (sorry Bing)
10. If the message is something you think you'll need in the future, that's cool. But put it where it belongs and trust in the Search Systems that are provided for us - as they are much better than we give them credit for. If it is a message for your eyes only, archive it using the big Archive button in Outlook (or swipe in the Outlook App). I've come to trust search and the Archive folder MORE than my previous habit of creating folders. So why make unnecessary work for yourself. My mailbox is flat, much like it was when it was first given to me 20 years ago. For messages that should be shared among your department, team or project - move that message to that context. For us, that means SharePoint, or rather Microsoft Teams. In fact, we work out loud so effectively in Teams that we rarely have emails that we need to move to SharePoint or Teams because we are actually having the conversation in there - not in Email. And that's ... Awesome. Finally, a little pro tip. Check out OnePlaceMail. These folks have built a beautiful Outlook, Outlook on the Web and Outlook for Mobile App that gives you point and click ease to "Send" your email (or just the attachment if you wish) right to your SharePoint site or Teams Channel. It's awesome and worth a look to add to your toolkit
11. If the email relates to something you can't deal with right now and requires further discussion, consider scheduling it as a meeting or event. There are several really easy ways to do this: First, you can simply create an Outlook Appointment. There are options right within Outlook to simply turn an email into an appointment, complete with those copied on the message added as meeting invites with the body of that email already in the meeting details. Second, Office 365 has a free add-on called "FindTime" which you should check out. This tool is great for taking a poll of the various people that you want to meet with, to find a time that works for everyone collectively and THEN book the meeting. Calendly is a third party product that is free or paid if you want more functionality. This is great for suggesting to the recipient that they look at your availability and pick a time that suits them Finally, in the Outlook App there is the amazing Swipe to Schedule option. If I want to deal with this item tomorrow morning, I can simply swipe and choose tomorrow morning. It will move to the "Scheduled" folder in Outlook and reappear in my inbox at a time when it is the right time to do something about it. Boomerang is a 3rd party option that also does this, and more if you wish to explore that tool. Regardless of the choice you make when turning an email into a meeting, be sure to delete the message from your inbox because the next steps are now defined!
12. Finally, if you can't delete it, archive it, deal with it immediately or schedule it - then the only remaining option is to delegate it - to another person, to a team or task it to ourselves. There are dozens of options here, but keeping this presentation focused on the Office 365 toolset, I'm making three suggestions: #1 - Delegate the task in Planner. If you have architected your Microsoft Teams properly, you should be able to easily identify a planner where delegating the task is appropriate. Be sure to provide context, assign it to someone and a desired due date so you can get it out of your brain and into the hands of someone appropriate to take care of next steps. #2 - If you are going to task something to yourself, you can do a number of things. You could create a To-Do item which was formerly Wunderlist for example. And something new that has just come along is the idea that Outlook Tasks are being replaced by Microsoft To-Do and further to that, new functionality now exists where if you flag an email, it will create a Microsoft To-Do item for that email. This way you can archive the email, which is flagged and pick it up in Microsoft To-Do where you can enjoy the power of not only putting an appropriate due date for the task but also enjoy the satisfaction of ticking it off when it is done And #3 - If what needs to happen is more than a single task - something larger - initiate a project. Microsoft Teams is our preferred place to do this but your mileage and offerings for tools will vary. Regardless, get it out of the Inbox and where it belongs
13. The next step is to be sure you don't set yourself up next for thinking you will ever be done with having tasks... You will always have tasks. When you die, there will be unfinished tasks. It is a reality. And let's face it ... if you don't have any tasks, that means nobody is counting on you or thinks you have something to offer. So stay being needed - just do it better.
14. Now before I go, I'm going to address the two "Butts" I hear when I talk about applying Inbox Zero, before you dismiss all this stuff. Misconception #1 - "I won't be able to find anything" Okay, this is one to get over now. It's true, Outlook search used to be pretty lousy - but that's because we were depending on our desktop to find our stuff and desktops were configured in all sorts of crappy ways. Our mailboxes are in the cloud now (or they should be) and thus we have the power and scale and AI to have Outlook find our stuff. Once I let go of using categories and folders, I realized I could find things BETTER using Search because my own filing system had holes in it. Get over it. Flatten out your mailbox structure, embrace the Archive and let search do its job And the Second Misconception - "It will take me days to apply all this work to my current inbox so that I can start applying the Inbox Zero concept" To that I say - Bullshit. Seriously, this one is easy. You just do this. Step 1 - create a folder or subfolder in your inbox called "Old Inbox" Step 2 - move all the items in your inbox today to that folder Step 3 - from this point forward, triage your inbox like you mean it, with one of the 5 possible actions you can take - that's it, really If you find you need to look at those items that were formerly in your inbox, go visit them in their new folder. Or simply search and see if it finds them. You DO NOT need to clean up your existing inbox. You simply need to start applying the basic principals I've covered going forward. Really.