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Email Triage: An Emergency Remedy

Tower o-EmailsYou know how it feels So Good to put your foot down on something that’s been giving you grief? When you finally say, “NO MORE!” and walk away with your head held high?

It’s tough. It’s scary. It’s worth it to not get into those situations just so you don’t have to make that kind of confrontation. But… sometimes you have to.

If you’re sitting there thinking, I don’t have anything in my life right now that I need to take a stand on, then let me ask you one question? How’s your email inbox looking?

Sure it’s “just email”, but if your relationship with your inbox is bringing you down in any way, then ask yourself if you’re ready to take it on…

Think about it: taking a stand on something small like your email inbox is less risky and less scary than taking a stand on something Big like telling someone that you don’t appreciate how they’ve been treating you, or that you are raising your rates for the first time in four years, or that you aren’t satisfied with the quality of work you’ve been receiving from a colleague.

And… taking a stand in an easy situation makes it easier in other, higher-stakes situations. You get a little confidence boost. You have a little proof that “I can do it.” You walk a little taller which makes everything easier.

How to change your relationship with email

Getting your inbox back to a neutral position in your workflow takes a two-pronged approach:

  1. Wrangling your inbox from skyscraper high numbers back down to earth.
  2. Learning how to keep it down within reach in the first place.

Charlie Gilkey of Productive Flourishing is a tactical guy. He has both broad biz strategy and practical solutions for those sticky areas haunting people in biz.

He created a little course to pull you back from the ledge of insane amounts of email.

It’s for people whose inbox contains a gnarled jumble of: important stuff, spam, messages long past relevant, work requests, promotions, newsletter, emails from your favorite nephew, and anything else under the sun.

Email triage is for emergency situations when you need a method to grab hold of your email box before it gets any worse.

The course is in a handout + audio format. I like the audio format because he walks you through what you need to do, step by step. So while the actual run time of the audio is 19 minutes, it could take you half an hour or 2 hours to actually go through it. (You’ll want to listen on a device that’s easy to start and stop the mp3.)

Digging yourself out from under the massive heap in an afternoon?
Cutting your email inbox count from 970 to 170?
For $10?
A no-brainer.

Get it here.

NOTE: It’s not a system for ongoing email management. That’s what my Annihilate Email Agony course is for: strategy and mind tools so that you don’t need the Email Triage again.

Remember: We are tribe of awesome people, making the world a better place. Your #1 job is to be You. The stress of email distracts from your awesomeness. Take a stand. Say: “No More!”

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Image credit: Shawn

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