Top Time Tip #119
There's Just TOO Much To Do. A Cautionary Tale!
1st May 2009
Just a quick note today before we jump to the lead article about one of my little life lessons!
I can't resist sharing this - have you heard of Susan Boyle, the VERY unlikely Scottish singer who entered the Britain's Got Talent 2009 competition?
If you haven't, rather than me spoiling the story, click here to check it out.
Yours in celebrating unlikely heroes and ... (can't say any more - just go there now and watch!)
Cheers,
Lead Article: There's Just TOO Much To Do. A Cautionary Tale!
If you've ever felt overloaded (every day, do I hear you groan?) I can totally empathise. Even though my life is great in every way, several things have recently  conspired to make me feel as though I'm just crawling out from under a rock - no, an avalanche - of 'stuff'! If you're thinking this is a strange admission for a time management specialist - hey, I never said I was perfect!
Actually, it's great I'm having this experience - it gives me another opportunity to notice what lots of people feel like much of the time. It also gives me a chance to dig a bit deeper and notice what causes such a situation. And as I get myself back on track it's a privilege to have this forum to share the lessons, in hopes that it might help some other poor struggler!
Two things conspired to create my situation.
The first was a delicious email-free week in early March when I began a re-write of my first book, 'Getting A Grip On Time'. The feeling of freedom from mail was amazing - I can honestly say I loved everything about that week, for mixed in with writing were some lovely family times as well. All good and I certainly recommend it for mental health and recuperation! The problems came after that week, when I had to face the backlog.
What could have been done differently?
Here are three ideas, and I'm very interested in your strategies. (We're cranking up the use of our Discussion Board again - feel free to add your comments there. Just click on 'New Topic' at either top or bottom of the page):
1. Schedule in a couple of no-meetings/no-commitment catch-up days after time away.
Trouble was, I was on such a roll with my writing I kept going with that instead of being disciplined with the 'catch-up'. And then I just got further behind! And then - the backlog got worse and some poor people slipped through the net!
2. If you've got staff, delegate them to answer mail on your behalf,  delete what they can, and send you a summary of the key actions they've taken on your behalf. This way your most important matters will be handled with one quick list rather than hundreds of mails (for some of us).
I used to do this process with physical mail but had forgotten to set it up for email. It was exacerbated by this occasion being a totally email-free week - usually when I'm offsite I still keep an eye on the mail. I did ask my wonderful Office Manager Jill to watch out for the urgent matters and they were dealt with via phone. However, I didn't think to ask her to do the second part. Drrr! As a consequence, everything sat there until I returned. Even though most of it wasn't urgent, some actions needed to be taken and the Unread Mail still needed to be checked. And of course the new mail didn't stop whilst I scrambled to catch up!
3. And how about this idea from my friend Yvette? Some years ago she was struggling with exactly the same issue. Here's her fairly drastic but very effective solution.
First she created a Rule to re-route any client-related query to a colleague. In her particular case client issues were easy to identify for they came via the website. For everyone else she set an Autoresponder saying 'It's Yvette here. I'm on leave until .... . and this email will be deleted. Please resend after my return if you still need to contact me.'
She then set another Rule to delete all new mail (apart from the client items). She told me: 'It was scary at first - but wow - it felt great to return from leave to a beautifully empty Inbox. And interestingly, hardly anyone re-sent their mail!'
One caution: Auto-responders are easy to manage if you work in a corporate environment with a server. However, if you're a home-based business you either need your computer on all the time (in which case it acts as a server) or in most email programmes these days you can set an autoresponder in your ISP's email system.
 The second thing that impacted me was a crashed computer whilst I was working a few weeks later in Sydney. Fortunately I had a good backup, so no data was lost. But - nearly two weeks later when I was finally re-united with my laptop, it was a real pain to find that all manner of things had to be reloaded, especially my Email Rules. I had to start from scratch with them completely!
For an easy explanation on how to use Rules (which I LOVE!) see my article How to Keep Your Inbox Empty. It's certainly reminded me again just how much time they save!
Here's to ever learning - and practising gratitude for reminders of good habits! I think I'd better go and re-read some of them myself!
A Couple of Really Useful Email Tools We Use and Recommend
Spam Arrest saves me so much Inbox CRAP!
SpeedFiler is the most useful plug-in tool to simplify email filing I've come across.
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There might be something for you at http://www.gettingagrip.com/products/index.asp
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