Have you seen those courses that encourage you to get to inbox zero? Me too. And that bugs me. It’s so easy to get distracted by shiny objects when our energy and time need to be spent on goals and actions that will make the most different to the growth we want in our business.
Three reasons why inbox zero is a bad idea
1. A “should” goal
Getting to inbox zero can easily become a “should” goal. That’s a goal that someone out there has told you that you should do if you really want to run a successful business.
I’m far more interested in WHY you want to get down to zero in your inbox.
Is it a desire to be “finished”?
To be more productive?
Because you’ll feel successful if you have nothing left to deal with in your inbox?
That kind of inbox zero course is usually teaching a cookie-cutter method, one size is meant to fit every kind of business and every kind of person. But they never do. We all have different styles of working and different types of business.
How you actually work is really important. The way you manage your emails needs to tie into that working style otherwise managing your inbox is going to feel like hard work.
For me I like to be able to see blank space at the bottom of my inbox and to know that everyone is getting an answer within two days. That is a measure of “success” for me as I know that my clients are getting the answers they need, in a timeframe that works for them.
It didn’t used to be that way. When I was a lawyer I was always trying to achieve inbox zero, because I thought that was what good service looked like. It wasn’t until a partner pointed out that I was “Doing a Rolls Royce job on a Mini Cooper budget” that I began to look at what my clients’ expected of me and what I was providing.
I had been putting a lot of pressure on myself that simply wasn’t necessary.
Take a moment to reconnect with why you want to have zero emails in your inbox.
2. When inbox zero becomes busy work
Constantly checking your inbox can become a form of busy work. The kind of work that makes you feel like you’re doing something important in your business, so that must be good right?
If continually logging into your inbox, or leaving it open all day with notifications binging away at you, has become a form of avoidance then you’ve slipped over into busy work. You could be avoiding learning the skill that is hard to master but that will make a big difference to your business. Maybe you’re avoiding doing a certain task because it takes you out of your comfort zone. It’s so much easier to pop into your inbox and play there for a while.
Take a moment to consider if getting down to inbox zero today truly moved the needle on your business. Or was it answering or reading certain emails that moved you towards your goals? Are there any tasks you were avoiding by being in your inbox?
3. The distraction of inbox zero
When does a goal stop being useful and start being a distraction?
It’s when the goal is never actually complete, when the goal isn’t really a goal at all. Instead it’s a repeating task you have to do each and every day in order to feel a sense of achievement. If you don’t deal with all of your emails you feel like you’ve failed.
I don’t know about you but I don’t want to feel like a failure every day!
Continually checking and managing can become a distraction from doing the essential tasks in your business that are yelling out for your attention.
That kind of “goal” can also create bad working habits as you find ways to “cheat” in order to get down to zero and feel that sense of satisfaction. Putting emails into folders so your inbox is clear, but you haven’t actually deal with the email, is one example.
So what do you do instead of inbox zero? Ignore your email? Check them once a week?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for managing your inbox but I want you to do that in a way that works for you and your business and helps you to achieve the really important goals in your business.
If you’re ready to manage your inbox in a sustainable way, then book in a two hour session with me. During our time together we’ll review the way you use your inbox now, create a new system aligned to your working style then do some dedicated decluttering. Book in by sending me an email at andrea@andrea-jordan.com.
