Hello Colin,
I read somewhere that you answer all of the emails you receive from your readers.
My question is HOW?
I don’t have any readers and I can barely keep up most days.
Yours truly,
Derek
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Hey Derek-
Populous as it sometimes becomes, I set aside time to answer all the (non-marketing) emails I receive because it’s a meaningful exercise to me, and I enjoy writing sometimes quick, sometimes somewhat verbose messages to the incredible people from around the world who decided to take the time to make a connection with a stranger from the internet.
I love that. And I feel incredibly humbled by the time and attention folks invest in such messages.
In terms of how this is accomplished, there are a few ideas worth considering that I’ve found to be immensely helpful, for this and for similar tasks/habits.
Focusing on my inbox, rather than doing a little here, a little there, mostly when I should be doing other things and when my mind is elsewhere, allows me to get into the zone—into a sort of flow state—which allows me to approach the task more gladly, but also more effectively and efficiently.
This also allows me to benefit from what’s sometimes called “batch processing”: a sort of economies of scale for things that you do in bunches, rather than periodically throughout the day.
I also adhere to what’s sometimes called Inbox Zero. This means that I essentially I treat my inbox like a to-do list, and any emails it contains represent a to-do item. Once I clear that item (acting upon information in an email, and/or responding to that email) I archive it or delete it so that it’s no longer in my inbox.
This method is almost certainly not for everyone, but I find I’m less stressed when I can treat my inbox in this way, keeping it clear or close to clear most of the time, and it allows me to achieve a sense of productivity as I answer emails, rather than feeling like I’ve merely cleared a single pebble from an immovable mountain.
Perhaps most fundamental to my email philosophy, though, is being careful with how I curate my inbox to begin with.
I take the time (it generally only takes a moment) to unsubscribe from things I don’t want to receive, and I gleefully click “spam” on things I didn’t sign up for or cannot easily remove via other means.
I’m also careful to avoid signing up for things I don’t want to receive, and I delete non-essential emails (instead of archiving them) as soon as I’ve gotten what I need from them—which keeps my archive relatively unburdened, as well.
I do receive a decent number of newsletters, these days, as the quality of the work being delivered via this medium has been on an upswing. But those, too, I delete after reading, and I treat them like any other email: I read them in batches, treat their consumption like I would any other task, and focus on them when I do read them so it doesn’t become a passive, less-valuable activity.
If you’re keen to wrangle your inbox, consider adopting something like Inbox Zero, consider being more careful about what you sign up for (and unsubscribing from all the things you no longer want to receive, to truncate your future email flow), and consider answering you email in batches—perhaps even two batches: one for actual messages from people, and one for the messages/newsletters you’ll consume and discard.