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This is what you want to do

Anne wrote to me from Nor­way a while ago (in an email, sur­prise sur­prise) and told me about how she feels very dif­fer­ent­ly about her email, in the best pos­si­ble way, after cre­at­ing an SOP regard­ing how she deals with emails. SOP stands for Stan­dard Oper­at­ing Pro­ce­dure and is a descrip­tion of how we have decid­ed some­thing will be done.

Instead of hav­ing how you deal with emails just ​“end­ing up in one way or anoth­er” and take up much more time, space, and ener­gy dur­ing your work­day than you would like it to, you con­scious­ly deter­mine what the best pos­si­ble way for you to process emails in is, write it down in an SOP, and then fol­low it in your dai­ly life.

Do this

1. Make your­self unavail­able for a few min­utes by sit­ting down by your­self some­where or mak­ing it clear to your col­leagues in some oth­er way that you do not want to be dis­turbed just now. Turn off noti­fi­ca­tions and oth­er dis­tract­ing sounds and put away any­thing you might catch a glimpse of that will side­track you.
2. Write a step-by-step descrip­tion — in oth­er words, an SOP — of how to best han­dle and process emails. You can, for instance, include aspects such as:
   • When you check for new emails.
   • What emails you will address first out of all the new ones.
   • What you do when an email means you have to do some­thing that will take longer than you have at your dis­pos­al the moment you read it (and to be extra clear, my advice is that you then add a clear­ly defined to-do task to your to-do list based off the email).
   • Where you will place emails you want to keep.
   • If there are any rules you want to stick to when com­pos­ing a new email or answer­ing an email you have received.
   • How long will your emails be? Will you use head­lines? Where in the email will you write the ques­tion you want to ask or what you want the recip­i­ent to do?
   • For how long will you process emails at a time before clos­ing the tab and mov­ing on to oth­er things on your to-do list?
3. Now save the SOP where it is read­i­ly avail­able when you open your inbox. It is a good idea to remind your­self of how you want to (and have decid­ed to) act by glanc­ing at the step-by-step descrip­tion once in a while for the first few weeks of using this new approach.

Time is spent doing what you real­ly want to do

If you make it clear to your­self how you pre­fer han­dling emails in a Stan­dard Oper­at­ing Pro­ce­dure, you are putting your foot down and mak­ing an active deci­sion regard­ing how you will treat this poten­tial nui­sance instead of being a vic­tim to its cease­less inflow. You will mas­ter your email instead of con­stant­ly feel­ing over­whelmed and ​“falling behind” rel­a­tive to every­thing that keeps com­ing. You will make bet­ter use of your time since you from now on act more con­scious­ly and do things accord­ing to your actu­al preferences.

What’s your way?

What have you includ­ed in your SOP? Please write to me and give examples.

(Look­ing for more tips on how to keep your inbox orga­nized? Check out how to resolve the unsolved emails hang­ing over you!)