130. Email Inbox Therapy

Episode Transcript

Nick Jaworski:
Hey, y’all. I’m going to pop in here, because I looked at our schedule today and I saw that we’re talking about inboxes. If I’m being 100% honest, I’m a four. I have lots of feelings. Inboxes-

Courtney Baker:
When you say four, you mean Enneagram four, just for-

Nick Jaworski:
Oh yes. Oh yeah.

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Nick Jaworski:
No, I’m just a number four.

Courtney Baker:
Four, like one to 10 on the-

Blake Stratton:
I was about to say.

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. I’m a four.

Blake Stratton:
Because three is actually the magic number.

Nick Jaworski:
Everybody, I’m just a four. Enneagram four, is that this, of all … We’ve done 130 something episodes of this podcast. My email inbox is the thing that gets me. I know that I am emotionally struggling or that things are not going well if I am afraid and terrified of my email, not responding to emails promptly. This is an episode for me. Let me ask Verbs. Verbs, is this … I’m not going to Courtney, because she’s a number three. Verbs, is this true for you as well? Do you ever have this experience, or am I alone?

Verbs Boyer:
You know what? I think just inbox things in general. Well, I think for me it can prove to be a distraction just because it’s almost like a gamification thing that you can almost easily get distracted by because there’s other opportunities that you feel like you can knock out or pursue during the course of a day. But yeah, I do. I definitely don’t feel fearful or anything like that as far as what’s lurking in the inbox, but it can definitely be a distraction for me.

Nick Jaworski:
Well, this is great then, because I know Courtney, I don’t know about you, because if you guys have the answers, then I’m ready.

Courtney Baker:
I will say, to give you some empathy, one, I don’t think you’re alone by any stretch of the imagination. I think that is very normal, actually. I have been there. I have certainly had, I think, especially early in my career where … I think I’ve shared this before. My inbox pretty much ran what I was doing for the day. I got, I’m not kidding, over a hundred emails every day. Probably more than that. It was insane. I have a lot of empathy for you, but I think also some solutions. I’m excited to kind of talk through this and hopefully kind of uncover some helpful things for everybody, but especially for you, Nick.

Nick Jaworski:
Oh, I’m ready. Maybe people can send me an email after the show and just see how I do. Please, don’t.

Verbs Boyer:
See how quickly that reply comes in.

Nick Jaworski:
Please do not do that.

Verbs Boyer:
Welcome to another episode of Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet, so you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Verbs, here with my colleague, Courtney Baker. Happy Monday to you, Courtney.

Courtney Baker:
Happy Monday. Yes. I feel like this topic today is probably what leads to a lot of people’s Sunday scaries and not wanting to do Monday, is the one and only inbox. Yeah. I’m so excited to talk about this and really dive into, I feel like we can kind of use Nick as proxy for our audience. I’m sure there are lots of you out there that feel that way. Anything you want to say, Verb-

Nick Jaworski:
I’m nervous.

Courtney Baker:
Before we just-

Nick Jaworski:
Talking about this. I am nervous.

Verbs Boyer:
The man is sweating. There’s beads forming on his forehead.

Nick Jaworski:
Sincerely, let me go look at my heart rate. Hold on. Let’s just go see. I’m terrified. I don’t know why. Oh yeah. I have an elevated heart rate, and we’re not even doing my email right now.

Courtney Baker:
Okay. Well-

Verbs Boyer:
We just started.

Courtney Baker:
Before we get into this, then, I want to dig just a little bit deeper, Nick, because I feel like if Blake was here, this is exactly what he would be saying. Tell me why. Why it is your heart rate up right now? What is behind the not just emotional but physical response to the idea of your inbox?

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. I’m at 84 heart rate. My resting is 60. This is not great. I think for me, it’s the same for voicemail, too. In fact, if you were to call me, you would see that my voicemail box says, “Do not leave me a message.” I don’t want it. Please do not.

Courtney Baker:
That’s just smart.

Verbs Boyer:
Right.

Courtney Baker:
That’s beside the point. I think voicemail, we’re all in that camp. That was very 1999, and we don’t do those anymore.

Nick Jaworski:
People still do.

Verbs Boyer:
Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Nick Jaworski:
People that I know still leave voicemails. I’m like, it says not to. Don’t do this to me. I think it has to do, right, I mean, anytime there’s an email, it’s usually a response. It’s something that you need to do. In my mind, it is an imagined thing that I have failed to do or have done improperly. There is a lot of just weird shamey self-image stuff that comes up. Even if it’s innocuous, it’s like I should have foreseen that or whatever. I’m not saying this is true most of the time, but I guess that’s the fear of it.

Courtney Baker:
To me, Nick, I’m about to go. Listen, Blake’s not here. I’m about to do some like little scuba myself here, but I mean, I feel like first, it sounds like you’re thinking. Can you say that what you just described is actually not anything based in fact, but actually it’s just your perception? It’s your thinking about email. Can you acknowledge that?

Nick Jaworski:
Oh, 100%, for sure.

Courtney Baker:
Okay. That’s kind of the first step because if you can acknowledge, okay, that’s just my thinking, that means that could you create another of thinking that would change the actions that you get?

Nick Jaworski:
Yes. It is scary to think about. I don’t know why. It’s healthier.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
But you’re like, oh I have to change how I feel. That’s scary.

Courtney Baker:
Well, not how you feel, but really your thinking. Can you choose a different thinking? I’ve done a lot of work on this myself. I think this is sometimes the hardest work. It’s like when we get in our own way and we don’t even realize it. We’re in our own way because of the way we’re thinking about something. If you can say, okay, that thinking isn’t based on facts, that’s just the way I’m choosing to think about this, that means that I can choose a different way to think about it. Again, I’m going really deep here out of the gate. Hey, who knew inbox is an email?

Nick Jaworski:
I knew.

Verbs Boyer:
Well, that’s the same way we think about limiting beliefs and liberating truths is what is it about my thinking about myself, the world, or others that contributes to this feeling that I have? Then, all right, if this is true or not true, what is a actual truth that could be more liberating and more freeing to just my thought process and how I perceive email? Let me ask you this though, just for clarity question. Is it just email or is it just messaging in general? You mentioned voicemails as well. Is it like, hey, there’s somebody commenting on something I’ve done, and I’m not sure how to feel about that?

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. In general, any sort of … I’m a special snowflake, everybody. Any sort of-

Verbs Boyer:
Okay, you must explain that, though, please.

Nick Jaworski:
Any sort of like … I have big thoughts. I think I’m a fairly creative person and can turn around a product pretty well. Anytime that there is, like I have to subscribe to someone else’s set path of steps. Things like Asana are kind of difficult for me at times. It’s not that it doesn’t get done. It’s just that I’m doing my thing. Here it is. Boom. Slack is okay. I think actually I have a couple clients who use Slack. I think Michael Hyatt and Company does a pretty good job with Slack. Doesn’t feel like … I would say a year ago that wasn’t the case, honestly, but it feels like we’ve found a balance for it where I can kind of check in-

Verbs Boyer:
Thank you for that critique.

Nick Jaworski:
The information I need and then check out. Yes, I think Verbs, you are correct. It’s that general space of the waiting response or action, which is not to say that I don’t get stuff done, but there is something about these platforms and emails that are not my favorite.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
To be clear, I want to be clear. Stuff gets done. I don’t want people to worry about that.

Courtney Baker:
Nick, you’re fantastic. Even you sharing your thinking about email, I’m like, I can’t believe that you would think that, because you are so great at what you-

Nick Jaworski:
Oh, thank you.

Courtney Baker:
I can’t imagine, to me in my own perception of you, nothing could be closer to how my thinking is about you. This happened so much more than I realized probably in my twenties, where people have a totally different perception of the same activity. You’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, how can that person and that person, all have the same, let’s just use a discussion, but all came away with a totally different interpretation of what happened. As we get started in this, I think maybe it would be good if you could brainstorm maybe some other ways that you could choose to think about email, as we’re going through today. I think foundationally that probably has to happen before any of our practical actions today can really make an impact.

Nick Jaworski:
Let’s see. I’m ready.

Courtney Baker:
Okay.

Nick Jaworski:
I have some solutions that I’ve come up with to deal with it, but I’m ready to be schooled. I’m ready.

Courtney Baker:
Well, let’s do it.

Verbs Boyer:
Guys, I mean the good news is that since it’s your inbox, you have the ability to wrangle it, to control it instead of the other way around and it controlling you. Today we are going to talk about three actions that you can take to maintain that chaos that awaits you in your inbox. Let’s jump right in. Action number one. Communicating about your communication, Courtney, I know your team is pretty good about this or at least see you post quite a bit, just the importance about letting everybody else know what’s going on so they can tailor their expectations as far as response from you. Do you have any extra thoughts on why that’s so critical for just staying focused?

Courtney Baker:
I think so many times when we get an email, we kind of assume that the people that emailed us want a reply right away. Again, we feel like this urgency that we’ve got to reply immediately. That’s not necessarily the case at all, especially when it comes to, Nick, in your case, working with clients. Part of it may be just letting clients know when you are going to communicate. When there is communication of like, “Hey, just so you know, I’m going to check in with email at the beginning of the day and the end of the day. You’re always going to get a reply from me within 24 hours, but I’ve designated these two times that I really knock out email.” Getting that type of communication from a client that I’m working with totally reframes the expectation on email.

Courtney Baker:
I know, hey, if I’m working with someone that is external contact and I kind of have the upfront expectation from them of when to expect communication, I know that if it’s beyond or outside of those times, I need something urgently, I need to go choose another form of communication with them, which usually looks like a phone call or a text message. Again, just communicating when that’s going to happen. I will say also from internal communication, this happens all the time with our team. We really have the expectation that this is asynchronous communication. I find this a lot when we have newer people on our team, we use Slack for internal communication. For this conversation, I’m kind of treating Slack like an inbox per se.

Verbs Boyer:
Sure.

Courtney Baker:
I’ll have new people that just feel like they have to be just waiting for a message in Slack so that they can get back to it as quickly as possible. Probably especially if they are on the marketing team, report on my team, it’s like, not only do I feel like that I’ve got to respond right away, but then it’s my boss. I really have to reframe for them, just so you know, I don’t expect you to respond within five seconds. Matter of fact, I don’t want you to.

Courtney Baker:
When you can respond to every message in five seconds, it tells me that you don’t have any time to do deep work. If you’re just waiting on Slack, you’re probably not doing the actual work that I’ve hired you on my team to do. Really framing that up and communicating both to your team about communication and also the other way around, maybe if it’s a client, if you work with outside clients, kind of just setting up when they can expect that communication.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. I think it’s important to mention, too Courtney, with that, as far as the expectations within our team, it is, hey, you don’t have to respond immediately, but the expectation is you that you’re responding 24 to 48 hours, whatever that timeframe may look like or need to look like. Just so you know, hey, a response is coming. A response is still expected. Here’s what you have to work with in that response time.

Verbs Boyer:
I think something I slip into is just the expectation we put on ourselves because we want to feel efficient, we want to kind of feel like, or at least I think this is like, all right, I want to under promise, but then over deliver. If I get to it quicker than I said I would, then that makes me look like I’m on top of it. I am working efficiently, but then also I don’t want to keep, and legitimately, I don’t want to keep other team members waiting on me if they need an important piece of information to continue doing what they need to do as well.

Nick Jaworski:
Can I ask, what is both of your … What is your process, both of you for your emails? When do you check? What expectation have you set up?

Courtney Baker:
That is a great question, Nick. We are about to cover that in action number two, which I’ll go ahead and tell y’all, is installing inbox rituals. I think this is probably the answer for Verbs and I both, but it definitely is for me.

Verbs Boyer:
For me, normally what it looks like, because I’ll call it more kind of seasonal or sometimes there’s different rhythms, but I know if I’m working on a project to where I know I have to super focus and I don’t have time to be distracted, and I know that everybody knows that I’m working on this project, I’ll just go ahead and shut down whatever communication platform it is, whether it’s email, whether it’s Slack, and just let everybody know, hey, we have a company water cooler that all of our team members can see those messages. I’ll say, “Hey, guys, I’m going on stealth mode today. I won’t be in Slack till the end of the day, working on a project. If it’s super urgent or immediate need arises, just feel free to text me.” Then I’m gone. I’m in stealth mode.

Verbs Boyer:
Or, if I have to check in more frequently, like Courtney mentioned, hey, it might be that morning check in during your Workday Startup, maybe either before or after lunch and then again at the end of the day. Then just having that freedom and that liberty to even close that all the way out, if it’s not in those three points of the day to where it’s not as much of a distraction. Obviously, you definitely have to turn off notifications and any kind of audio sounds that will ding you to think, to check those inboxes, but just even having it open visually on your desktop can just be just as much a distraction that will rob you of your focus during those times. What about you, Courtney?

Courtney Baker:
Absolutely. It all comes down to my inbox rituals. This is so critical for me. When I do my Workday Startup, part of that going through my inboxes. I know which inboxes is part of my, literally written in my planner, as part of my ritual, which inboxes I need to clear out as part of my Workday Startup. Same thing for my Workday Shut down. Now with Slack, I have another cadence similar to Verb’s, where I’m going to check in with that, usually midday, to just kind of clear that out, because that’s where the majority of my work and my team is needing responses at. For you, do you have an inbox ritual? A time where you’re basically trying to clear out?

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. I mean, I check in the morning as part of … It’s the second to last thing that I do before I’m into work mode, and then I do it at the end. Really, that’s a very conscious effort from a lot of this organization is just going, I’m just going to check in once. I do have this sense throughout the day that there’s things happening that’s-

Courtney Baker:
Okay.

Verbs Boyer:
There is.

Courtney Baker:
Let me ask you this.

Verbs Boyer:
There’s absolutely things happening.

Courtney Baker:
There are things happening. Yeah, as should be. When you do it as part of your ritual, do you feel like you’re able to get through your inbox or are you leaving things sitting that you weren’t able to address?

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. I think that sometimes you go, “Oh, I’m going to get back to this. I need to think about this,” but I also have to do this other thing in 10 minutes. Then, that thing that you really want to spend time on and give the proper, whether it’s I need to fix a thing or I need to think about something, suddenly that becomes a to-do that is sort of out in limbo and doesn’t necessarily have a time assigned to it. You know?

Courtney Baker:
Okay.

Nick Jaworski:
I had a schedule.

Courtney Baker:
Can I give a recommendation for that?

Nick Jaworski:
Yes.

Courtney Baker:
Okay. It sounds like maybe, first of all, that maybe you don’t have enough time in your ritual to get through your email. My recommendation would be when you get to an item like that, that you’re like, “Oh gosh, I’m not going to have enough time because I basically need to do something with this. This is actually a larger to do that can be done than just like responding back,” what I would do is move that into my planner as a to-do for the day. Then, I would respond back and say, “Hey, I’m going to work on this today or tomorrow.” Whenever they can expect to hear back, ensuring that I’ve got it in my planner, this is really important, or in a project management system. Then I’m going to respond back. That email is then out of my inbox. I’m going to come back to it when I can deliver what I’ve committed verbally. I’ve let them know when to expect word back from me having completed what they were asking for.

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. I love that.

Verbs Boyer:
Can I add to that?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. Add to that Verbs.

Verbs Boyer:
Courtney, to what you just said. I think that’s super important. What she just said is that communication back to whoever’s asking about communication, because even in your own mind, at least you’ve responded in such a way to now you’ve set the expectation. The ball is in your court as far as communicating back within the timeframe you said, but at least the response is there and now they know, okay, this is inside his task management system or it’s on his radar, so to speak. That’s helpful because then you know I’ve communicated. I have time to get it done or time to process the response or whatever needs to be done. They know that. I think, secondly, I would say this because I know this is important to you, as you mentioned, is you want to do quality work.

Verbs Boyer:
For me, I have to remember every time I shift from a design project and I’m in Slack for some little tidbits of information, then my focus is going to take a ding and then to get back on focus and gain my momentum again, it’s that whole attention residue thing. It’s going to take for me a while to get back fully focused on what I was doing. I don’t want the quality of my work to be affected by what I’m producing. It’s important for me to say, I could either have this or have this. That helps me get in the right mindset of, well, let me shut this down for now because I really need to Focus on This so I can deliver the quality that I need to deliver. I’m not falling prey to that whole attention residue thing that’s going to rob me just the time that I have to work on a task during the day. Then probably it’s going to affect the quality of my work and it’s not going to be as thorough as I want it to be.

Nick Jaworski:
One of my favorite tips from Michael Hyatt actually is his approach to vacation email. I actually forgot about this when I just took a vacation and I have an assistant. I was like, “Next time we’re doing this, I can’t believe I forgot to do this.” My understanding of it is basically, he has somebody, Jim, going in and checking his emails. Really it’s more of a, “Hey,” there’s an auto responder up in Michael’s email. It says, “Hey, I’m out until X date. If this is an emergency, contact somebody,” I don’t know if there’s a contact there, but basically it says, “Then we’re deleting all these emails. Other than that, we’re deleting all these emails. If you still need assistance with this, please email me back on the day after he’s back from his vacation or whatever.” I love that so much. I feel like there’s real power in that and control in there that I feel like could be leveraged maybe in other ways. I need to remember to do that next time for sure.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. This is a really interesting … I’ve never heard this tip actually. Basically what you’re saying Michael does is he commits what I call email bankruptcy after each vacation. Totally wipes out all the emails that he got during that time, is what you’re saying, right?

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. He just communicates, and part of the theory here is that people use email as like a, they expect quick responses. They just go to you in case they need a reply, but often times they don’t actually need you. They’ll solve it themselves. If they don’t, they can just wait and reach back out to you. If it’s super, super urgent, they have somewhere to go, which would be Jim, I assume.

Courtney Baker:
Tell us about your Workday Shutdown with your inbox. How does that go?

Nick Jaworski:
The startup for me, I don’t think this is that uncommon. The startup, my Workday Startup, great. That whole, whatever, I got the time I need, we’re ready to go. My shutdown is very hit or miss just depending on-

Courtney Baker:
Okay, Nick. I should have made a prediction, because this is … Guys I’m so serious with this. When my inbox, when I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I feel overwhelmed with my inbox,” it is because my Workday Shutdown has been compromised. I get it. Here’s what happens. You have that big project. You’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so close to getting done.” I have this thing that just has to get done. I’m not going to stop now to get my Workday Shutdown in. I’m just going to use that time to get this thing done.

Courtney Baker:
This is so important. It’s almost counterintuitive because you’re like, “Oh, that big thing I’m working on is actually high leverage,” and email, you know doing Workday Shutdown, in a sense is like clearing out the low leverage work. You get tempted and you’re like, “Yeah, I’m going to keep doing this thing.” What happens is when we don’t clear out the low leverage work, like clearing out our inboxes, it becomes this monster. That monster that you’re afraid to check your inbox, which ultimately means your approach to getting into the rest of your deep work is not as good. Yesterday, y’all are going to die because I’m about to talk about Peloton.

Nick Jaworski:
I’m all in now, Courtney. I’m with you.

Courtney Baker:
I know. Okay. I was doing a really hard Peloton ride where it was like basically max effort for 15 seconds, and then all the way off for 15 seconds. Part of me was like, I’m not going to take the resistance all the way off because I got to go all the way back up again. The coach literally was like, if you don’t go all the way down, you’re going to suffer the next … You’re not going to be able to perform as well as you could in the next max effort.

Courtney Baker:
I was like, oh gosh, that’s right. It’s kind of like that. It’s like, if you’re not able to really reset well mentally, you’re not going to be able to perform in the things that you really need to perform well for.

Verbs Boyer:
Wait. So, Courtney, are you saying, for instance, Nick has 15 minutes left on the edit to a podcast for a significant client. It’s the end of his workday. He should stop with 15 minutes left, knowing that it could be completely done and delivered at the end of that 15 minutes, and stop to check email. Is that what you are communicating to us this day?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. I mean, what I’m saying is … Yeah, you’re like, let me just like put this one out there. Well, I mean obviously if that episode is due in the next hour then-

Verbs Boyer:
Well, not due, but it’s just, you only got 15 minutes left and it can be done.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. I actually am. I’m basically saying you need that Workday Shutdown. It is critical. You’ve got to bookend the end of your day. I’ve said this over and over again. When I find people that are overwhelmed on our team, I always ask about the Workday Shutdown. It is so easy to sacrifice it to whatever work that you’re working on. Again, because if we don’t do it, it’s just like that bike ride, if we don’t reset, recover, we can’t perform at our highest level for the next time around, which is the highest leverage work. The next day you get in to do your Workday Startup. You can’t get through all the things you need to in the time allocated, because you didn’t do the shutdown the day before.

Courtney Baker:
Let me ask you this, Nick. Okay. Workday Shutdown is hit or miss. Then that feeling that you’ve had of like, oh, things are happening. Then you end your day because you’ve got to. You’ve got to take your kiddo somewhere. You’ve got to do something. Work has to end. Then do you go into the night kind of with this like nagging feeling of something has happened I have no visibility into, and for me kind of like sticks with me. It’s like a feeling. Sometimes I have to stop to be like, oh, I’m feeling this because I didn’t do my Workday Shutdown. I’m afraid-

Verbs Boyer:
It’s the scaries.

Courtney Baker:
That something is sitting in my inbox that I should have addressed and didn’t.

Nick Jaworski:
Well, yeah. The worst part actually is that, and this is a little outside of the inbox, but part of my Workday Shutdown is my next day’s big three, daily big three. Suddenly now I have to find time for that somewhere else later. Then the evening is really kind of split in this weird way, or I might wait till the morning to do it, but that’s time in my morning that’s now my morning routine is all, my start is all a mess. So it really does. Obviously when you say it out loud, it’s like going to therapy and you say something out loud and you’re like, “Well, duh.” Now that I’m saying it’s so obvious, but it’s hard when you’re in it to identify it.

Courtney Baker:
Well, and I would even go back to Verbs’s example of like, are you really saying with 15 minutes left for Nick to stop up doing his podcast episode. I guess my even pushback to that would be if you know, 100% at 5:00 I’m going to do my Workday Shutdown no matter what that, if you knew that, that is a hard constraint, I actually think when you were editing that podcast episode that you would get done in time. Because you know I can just use that time from 5:00 to 5:30, if I need it, I can get 15 minutes done then, you’re always going to take up that space. I think having that hard, like I do not let my Workday Shutdown go, actually will produce more in a shorter amount of time.

Nick Jaworski:
How often do you guys miss your shutdown? Both of you have kids, you’ve got busy stuff. What percentage are you hitting that?

Courtney Baker:
I would say I hit mine 90% of the time, because I have it blocked as a calendar. It is an event on my day. I believe so much in, honestly, not just the positive things of it, but the negative impact when I don’t.

Nick Jaworski:
Verbs?

Courtney Baker:
Verbs, what about you?

Verbs Boyer:
I don’t hit mine 90% of the time, but I tend to … Don’t fire me from this podcast for saying this, but I tend to look at the process versus the actual time that I do it, because I know all right, I need to be done with this by a certain time. When that time hits, well, then I’m going into, what do I need to shut it down and then prepare myself for that next day? That happens pretty much between 80 to 90% of the time, for sure. The hard end time I don’t have that as much as I do just the process of making sure I’m shifting and transitioning into that shutdown mode, which sometimes comes back to bite me anyway, because at some point I do need to shift in to some sort of family time and close out my work day mindset.

Courtney Baker:
Listen, nothing gets more produced from me than when I have to do a … Picking up kids from school.

Nick Jaworski:
Sure.

Courtney Baker:
Someone has got to be there and it’s got to be me. I’m a big believer in this. I mean, I think if you’re listening, try it out. Put a really hard constraint. If you don’t have something like you’ve got to pick up kids, you can try making an appointment, you can go to the gym at that time where you’ve scheduled it. Do whatever you can, where it’s like, you really got to be accountable to that constraint and do schedule … I really love scheduling my Workday Shutdown. I think it works really well for me.

Verbs Boyer:
All right, this is good stuff, guys. Let’s go on to action number three, which is auto sorting the inbound. You kind of alluded to this, Nick, when you brought up the whole vacation mode on your inbox, on your email. Then I think Courtney, you were commenting on it as well, but obviously there’s a bunch of stuff that’s going to come into our email. Some of it is pertinent work information. A lot of it’s junk mail, but it’s all compiled together. Then it kind of creates that overwhelming sense of man, I got to sort through this, because there’s something in there that I definitely need to know. Just the fact that you have a bunch of unanswered emails, that thought looming in your head is definitely not helpful. What are some of the ways that we could, or even tools that we can use to help us make that less of a chore?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. First of all, if you have a bunch of junk, especially in your professional email account, a tool like unroll.me, which basically lists all of your existing subscriptions and lets you unsubscribe with like one click. Guys, don’t unsubscribe from the Focus on This, I guess email.

Nick Jaworski:
It doesn’t let you do that.

Courtney Baker:
It does not let you do that one. That one, it just it doesn’t work, but all other ones it will do. That can help. Also, tools like SaneBox, which really basically is working behind the scenes to sort your inbox and filter what’s important based on your past activity. Gmail actually has some of this functionality that you can turn on as well. Those are some automation tools that you can apply.

Courtney Baker:
I would say in general, if you have any emails coming in, especially to your professional inbox, that you are continually just archiving or just like deleting, really examine, okay, how do I just get these from ever hitting this inbox? Sometimes that takes a little bit of work to clean up. Even like, for example, I get a lot of Google Doc comments in my inbox.

Verbs Boyer:
Yes. Lord, have mercy.

Courtney Baker:
The other day, I was like, why? I actually see these in a different location in Slack. I don’t need them in my inbox. I need to go make sure, get that setting turned off. These don’t need to be taking up time in my inbox. Now, Nick, for you, you have an assistant. For everybody working out there, I meet so many people that work with assistants that their assistants do not help them with email. Honestly, it blows my mind.

Nick Jaworski:
Let me-

Courtney Baker:
One question-

Nick Jaworski:
Well, can I talk about this?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. Yes. Let’s talk about it.

Nick Jaworski:
Okay. You brought it up a second ago and then I was thinking about it. The issue that has happened with my assistant Nery, who is lovely. Love Nery. The issue that’s happened is that I’ve got my little company and it used to be me and my friend’s basement back in 2015, 2014. Now we’ve got multiple editor and sort of grown, but I’ve never left that initial email. Now that email box is the centerpiece for a lot of stuff that happens that Nery is responsible for delegating, but I still have to kind of see. Literally yesterday in our meeting, I was like, “I’m not-”

Verbs Boyer:
Wait, Nick, do you actually really have to see it?

Nick Jaworski:
Well, I’m saying I have to, because I’m looking. I go into the email, not because I need to, but because I go into the email and it’s just there.

Verbs Boyer:
Sure.

Nick Jaworski:
Now I am seeing all of it because also some of those emails are for me and for things I do.

Courtney Baker:
Nick, let me ask you this. What’s keeping you from just having another email address?

Nick Jaworski:
So funny. Literally yesterday in my meeting with Nery, I just said, “I’m not going in there anymore. We’re going to try like this experiment-”

Courtney Baker:
It sounds like you could just have another email and then she sends you on the ones that you need to address.

Nick Jaworski:
Yes. There’s always been this issue with communicating to client, which is sort of how do you do that? We’ve been doing this for so long. Literally yesterday I just said, “Let’s just try it. Very Michael Hyatt experiment. We’re just going to try it for a week. I’m not going to go in there. We’ll figure out what my other email will be.” I don’t have a Nick@ email actually in my own company. Probably set that up.

Courtney Baker:
That’d be a nice one.

Nick Jaworski:
She literally just now texted me email updates that I need to know right now. That’s the new plan.

Courtney Baker:
It’s so Enneagram four of you not even to have Nick at. That’s just too common, too normal.

Nick Jaworski:
My email is yes. It’s yes at. People, when I first started, everybody used to go, “I love your email.” For real. They’re like, “It feels so positive.” It’s not-

Verbs Boyer:
You didn’t have not today at.

Courtney Baker:
Yes. Well, I love this plan. I would just say I think that’s really smart. I mean, if you work with an assistant, obviously you have auto sorting with these tools, but you also, if you work with an assistant, have them sort this for you, Have them get everything out that you don’t need to have your eyes on. Have them distill this down to the things that are only you can do.

Courtney Baker:
If there’s something in my inbox that somebody else can do, I’m basically equipping her to go have those other people do it or have her do it. I mean, I think really giving her autonomy and the tools to feel like she can process email confidently on my behalf, to me, it’s been an absolute game changer. For all of you listening that maybe work with an assistant and you haven’t turned over email, that would be my number one thing. Do it as an experiment. I think you’re going to see a lot of benefits.

Nick Jaworski:
Can I also just, this is that moment. I got an assistant because I was sitting in a recording session with Michael and Megan. They were talking about virtual assistants. This is also a moment to say, maybe you can afford a virtual assistant. I will just say that as well. If this is an issue for you, it’s not that many hours. I never thought it’s something that I would’ve done, but I just want to throw that out there as well.

Courtney Baker:
Well, Nick, I mean, this reminds me of the episode we did the other day with Stacie. She said, when she was doing her Ideal Week, it’s a puzzle. There’s only so much time in a day. You really have to look at your role and think, do I have enough time to spend 10 hours a week on email? No.

Courtney Baker:
What do I need to do where that time gets spent on these other really important things? I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago that’s an executive director who still had an assistant, still did all of her email. It was like, I mean the work that she is doing is just incredible. The amount of time she’s having to allocate to email, it’s almost shocking because you’re like, gosh, you’re doing such incredible big things. Just imagine what you could do if you could cut that in half of what you’re spending on your email inbox. Well guys, this was real fun for me. I mean, I don’t know about y’all.

Verbs Boyer:
Super good.

Courtney Baker:
Listening.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
Hopefully, this was like-

Nick Jaworski:
We seem to have found a space where you feel very confident. This is great. This has been great.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. This is right up my alley right here.

Verbs Boyer:
Thank you, Nick, just for being brave and transparent and sharing some of your challenges here with the old inbox.

Nick Jaworski:
That’s the whole brand. You got to be vulnerable, but then really secretly spend all of your time cultivating an image. That’s how it works. Oh, look at me, I am selectively being vulnerable. If Blake were here, he would totally get this.

Courtney Baker:
100%. Yes. 100%.

Verbs Boyer:
All right. The good news is you don’t have to let the inbox chaos continue and stay buried under message, after message, after message. You can take control of your inboxes and therefore your days, by communicating about your communication, installing inbox rituals, and auto sorting the inbound. Courtney, Nick, any final thoughts for our Focus on This listeners?

Courtney Baker:
Well, I mean, Nick, I would love to ask you. Can we just really quickly come up with, again, going back to the very beginning of this episode, just a different thinking approach to your inbox?

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. I think for me, I don’t know how listeners feel, but kind of the big takeaways about how to emotionally approach and logistically approach the email is to really hunker down on that shutdown. I think that is very 100% correct. You said it, and I went, “How do I create a system where I am doing my shutdown?” I have to. Whether it’s finding a partner who’s also going to do a shutdown at that same time. That was my first thought. It’s like, “Hey, we’re meeting at 4:30 or whatever, and we’re doing our shutdown together and you’re going to make me feel a little bad if I’m not doing my shutdown.” That’s what I need. That’s what I need from them. That’s a big thing. That’s my big takeaway is to go, and if I have a system in place, then the work is going to get done. People like the work I do. They’ll wait for an email.

Courtney Baker:
I think that’s exactly it.

Verbs Boyer:
I want you to hear what you just said, Nick. People like the work I do. Let that help that, the shame thing that you mentioned at the beginning or the fear of what’s on the other side of this communication, because that’s your liberating truth right there is people like the work I do.

Nick Jaworski:
I’m writing it down on a post-it note. I’m going to put it right here.

Courtney Baker:
Not even that. I mean, I think you can add to that and say, “I have the tools I need to respond promptly or I have the tools that I need to do this well.” People love the work that I do. It’s like you know what tools you need to install to be successful at email.

Nick Jaworski:
Notice that it is a-

Courtney Baker:
That’s amazing.

Nick Jaworski:
There you go. It’s going on-

Verbs Boyer:
To do it efficiently but still deliver quality product.

Nick Jaworski:
There you go.

Courtney Baker:
I love that.

Nick Jaworski:
Thanks, everybody.

Courtney Baker:
I will just say for anybody out there, listen, start small. Try some of these out. I think they can go a long way, but this episode wasn’t really intended to be a massive billboard for your Workday Startup and Shutdown, but I think it really is. Again, if you aren’t doing those, do it today. Put a hard stop on your day and do your shutdown and just monitor how you feel going into tomorrow.

Verbs Boyer:
Listeners, thank you for joining us on Focus on This. This is the most productive podcast on the internet. Share it with your friends. Make sure you join the full focus planner community right there on Facebook. We’ll be here next week with another great episode. But until then, stay focused.

Courtney Baker:
We should’ve had Nick on there for a second.

Verbs Boyer:
I know. I thought you was going to jump in Nick.

Nick Jaworski:
Stay focused. It’s our ASMR episode.

Courtney Baker:
Yes.