June 11, 2008	Volume 8, Issue 24
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Inbox Bloat Recovery

by Rick Brenner

If you have more than ten days of messages in your inbox, you probably consider it to be bloated. If it's been bloated for a while, you probably want to clear it, but you've tried many times, and you can't. Here are some effective suggestions.

f your email inbox is bloated, you probably want to clean it up. If you cleared it out recently, and it's gradually re-bloating, you probably fear it's happening again. Maybe you've just given up altogether.

Unless you have an assistant, or you're one of the carefully energetic few who regularly keep their inboxes clear, bloat and bloat anxiety are facts of life. Advice about how to keep your inbox clear once it's clear does help, but it doesn't help you get your inbox clear — it doesn't help you recover from bloat. Here are some suggestions for bloat recovery.

Recognize that inbox bloat is a fact of your life

Some believe that once they clear their inboxes, they'll magically stay clear. Sadly, that doesn't work. Unless you change how you operate, re-bloat is inevitable, and cleaning up is hardly worth it.

Keep doing what you're doing

Whatever you've been doing, keep it up for now. Beating yourself up for not dealing with every single one of today's messages is demoralizing. Instead, focus on the total message count — drive it down a little every day.

Use sort-by-subject and sort-by-sender

When you work on the backlog, sort your inbox by sender or subject, instead of by date. That way, related messages often appear next to each other, and you can select and deal with several at once.

Read your new email less frequently

Do what you can to read new email less often. Allocate some of the time you save to sorting, classifying, and deleting old mail.

Move aged messages elsewhere

Move all messages more than three years old to a folder elsewhere. Think about it — three years is enough time to create a toddler who sasses you back. Messages that old are unlikely to be of value, but if you want them, move them elsewhere. Beating yourself up for
not dealing with every
single one of today's
messages is demoralizing.
Let it go.

Filter out the junk

Even if you're protected from junk, occasionally junk does get through. Search for the usual keywords and delete the junk. Also look for old out-of-the-office messages.

Eat elephants in small bites

It probably took a long time to build all the bloat in your inbox. Give yourself time to get rid of it. A goal of reducing it by 25 to 50 messages per day is reasonable, but go easy at first. Set the goal low enough to give you some experience of achievement, and before you know it, your inbox will be nearly clear.

Managing your inbox to prevent bloat requires adding some regular practices to your routine. Until you dramatically reduce the current bloat, these practices will have little effect. But you can get started learning about them, and start using each new practice as soon as you understand it. More about these in a future article.  Top    Next Issue

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Are you so buried in email that you don't even have time to delete your spam? Do you miss important messages? So many of the problems we have with email are actually within our power to solve, if we just realize the consequences of our own actions. Read 101 Tips for Writing and Managing Email to learn how to make peace with your inbox. Order Now!

And if you have organizational responsibility, you can help transform the culture to make more effective use of email. You can reduce volume while you make content more valuable. You can discourage email flame wars and that blizzard of useless if well-intended messages from colleagues and subordinates. Read Where There's Smoke There's Email to learn how to make email more productive at the organizational scale — and less dangerous. Order Now!

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More articles on Effective Communication at Work:

Manipulated Commitments

Manipulated or coerced commitment looks pretty good on paper, but it might not lead to dedicated action. When the truth is finally revealed, trouble can be unavoidable.

The Power of Presuppositions

Presuppositions are powerful tools for manipulating others. To defend yourself, know how they're used, know how to detect them, and know how to respond.

The Fine Art of Quibbling

We usually think of quibbling as an innocent swan dive into unnecessary detail, like calculating shares of a lunch check to the nearest cent. In debate about substantive issues, a detour into quibbling can be far more threatening — it can indicate much deeper problems.

Appreciations

When we take time to express to others our appreciation for what they do for us, a magical thing happens.

Virtual Communications: Part II

Participating in or managing a virtual team presents special communications challenges. Here's Part II of some guidelines for communicating with members of virtual teams.

See also Effective Communication at Work and Writing and Managing Email for more related articles.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact me for details at rbrenner@ChacoCanyon.com or (617) 491-6289, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

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Public seminars

Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics

Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in them from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? We'll inventory the challenges of organizational politics, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees learn concrete techniques for dealing with the problems that arise in workplace politics, while keeping their integrity intact. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarRichmond, VA (South Side): March 17, Southside Dinner Meeting, Central Virginia Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarRichmond, VA (West End): March 18, West End Dinner Meeting, Central Virginia Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarThe Conference Center at Bentley in Waltham, MA: May 1, Professional Development Day, Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   

Managing Virtual Teams for Real Results

Managing global or dispersed teams is challenging — miscommunications, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict all thrive in the typical environment of the distributed team. And they're even more common in global teams, because of time-zone offsets and language and cultural differences. We'll inventory the challenges distributed and global teams face, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees will learn concrete techniques for preventing and dealing with the problems that accompany global and distributed teams. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarKitchener, Ontario: May 19, Dinner Meeting, PMI Canada's Technology Triangle Chapter.
   

Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

Human-Centered Risk Management

Most of us can assess technological risks, but risks related to human behavior tend to resist our best efforts. This session provides a framework for evaluating risks related to the behavior of individuals, teams, organizations and people generally. Human-centered risk differs from technological or market risk, because objective evaluation requires acknowledging personal and organizational limitations and failures. Since some of those limitations and failures might apply to the people assessing the risks, or to their superiors, there's a tendency to deny them or to explain them away. Our approach examines capability, organization, context, risk mitigation, and workplace politics. It has tools for guiding the assessment and management of human-centered risk, and we show how to extend these tools to suit your situation. You'll learn how to identify sources of risk in human behavior; recognize systemic and individual barriers to acknowledging risk; assess the effects of organizational turbulence; determine the risk associated with inappropriate internal risk transfer; estimate the effects of team dysfunction, toxic conflict and turnover; and measure the impact of workplace politics. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Politics of Meetings for People Who Hate Politics

There's a lot more to running an effective meeting than having the right room, the right equipment, and the right people. With meetings, the whole really is more than the sum of its parts. How the parts interact with each other and with external elements is as important as the parts themselves. And those interactions are the essence of politics for meetings. This program explores techniques for leading meetings that are based on understanding political interactions, and using that knowledge effectively to meet organizational goals. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarWherever you are: it's a webinar: August 3, Monthly Meeting Webinar, Memphis Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarMelbourne, FL: April 12, Monthly Meeting, Space Coast Florida Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarThe Conference Center at Bentley in Waltham, MA: May 1, Professional Development Day, Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Fort Wayne, IN: September 22, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Indiana Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Overland Park Convention Center, Overland Park, KS: October 4, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarMITRE, in Bedford, MA: February 15, 2011, Monthly Meeting, Boston SPIN.