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Secrets to Success
Deborah Cole Micek
and John-Paul Micek
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Divide and conquer your e-mail
Third of four parts
LAST week, I highlighted the importance of organizing incoming e-mail. With Microsoft Outlook, you can do this easily with a few clicks. If you use another program, you'll have to do a little research to see how this process will work for you. Either way, you can model it after my system.
» Folder No. 1: This is for clients. Your clients come first. They're the reason you're in business, and why they're in Folder No. 1.
» Folder No. 2 is for my partner's e-mail. Often, he asks questions that need to be acted on immediately. It could be about a client or a strategy that he wants support on. Other times, he's following up on e-mails that I have sent him. If you have a partner, or do business with someone in a strategic-partner manner, or with someone at that level whose e-mail needs to be responded to as soon as it comes in or within several hours, their e-mail would go in Folder No. 2.
» Folder No. 3: This is a low priority, read-later folder. Newsletters and e-zines that I subscribe to go into this folder. It's organized based on the particular title of the newsletter. This lets me get caught up with cutting-edge trends on my own time, without distracting me the minute it comes in.
Now, when I'm ready to focus on answering my clients' coaching questions, I know what folder to look in, and I'm prompted by my calendar, because it's scheduled specifically into my day. This is just a more organized way to program your brain so it can focus all of its energy toward one project or one person's business.
Remember, if you allow yourself to read e-mail as it comes in, you're actually subjecting yourself to think on many different levels from high to low priority.
If every other piece of e-mail that you get is junk mail, then your brain will start to see the e-mail process as a low return on your investment in time, and it will react accordingly.
Your brain will begin to work more casually when you're reading e-mail or doing low-priority tasks, and you'll become less effective.
Similarly, your brain will become more focused when you're doing something that is on your schedule as an appointment. That's why I schedule the time I work on e-mail at set times in the day. When my reminder alarm goes off, I finish the project I'm working on and check e-mail for that set time frame. Then I'm on to my next high-priority project or coaching client.
This also prevents me from using all of my time doing one particular task. It allows me to spread out my time equally so that my clients get equal attention.
Next week, I'll tell you how this process can help you find additional time for you, your business, and your clients.
John-Paul Micek is the lead business coach at RPM Success Group Inc. Reach him at
JPM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.
Deborah Cole Micek, chief executive officer of RPM Success Group, is a business success coach and life strategist. Reach her at
DCM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.