I’ve been attempting to stick with the less-email approach for the last two weeks and it’s been generally helpful. However, I’ve had to violate the number of times I check email and ran into some surprises. I’m also not sure whether it’s a good idea to restrict yourself in certain circumstances or just to go with the spirit of the idea. Anyhow, here are some realizations after checking email mostly-twice during the work day for a couple weeks.

Lesson 1: Email is always a distraction. If you’re working on something it’s never a good idea to check your email and get distracted.

Challenge: Some tasks merit fast-paced email exchange or require a response via email. Sometimes an email message in the morning relates to an appointment in the afternoon. But looking for one email typically results in receiving more than you wanted.

When I initially communicate with a prospect or a client, I want to impress them with responsiveness…and I feel I can achieve that (to some degree) with quick email back-and-forth. I’m also not yet in a position to explain to them my new “philosophy of email” and thus why our email exchange may take a while. And, as for project-related emails, as deadlines are coming I feel that it’s of crucial importance that I receive them.

Possible Solutions:

1. OUT OF OFFICE RESPONSE: I could, as Tim Ferriss suggested, create an “Out of Office Response” that tells people my email strategy. That would solve the “appointment confirmation” problem but it could still weird-out a new prospect and I’m not sure how well it’d help in a project-based situation–the sender might not be aware of the significance of their input into my work.
2. COMMUNICATION: For starters, telling people about your process is a good thing. Especially your co-workers. Right now I’ve only told a few people about my approach because I wasn’t sure that I was going to stick with it. But now I realize that checking email twice (or at least not until around lunchtime) is magnificently liberating (I actually get stuff done in the morning!)…and I’m going to tell a lot of coworkers and clients. Though it doesn’t solve the “new clients” problem, it’ll resolve 80% of the communications issues, as those are with the same small group.
3. FUDGING WITH DISCIPLINE: There are going to be times when you need to check your email. Just try not to pay attention to anything else when you’re looking for that one message.
4. THE IMPORTANT DUDE: Have someone else check your email (frequently) who is familiar with your process. If a really important message comes in (they’d have to fully understand what really important means!) then they’d let you know. I look forward to that day…

Lesson 2: Breaking the system for seemingly logical reasons is risky.

Challenge: It seems that when you’re in transit or in between tasks that email won’t take away from something else and thus it’d be perfectly fine to check it now. However, when you do check your email you may be surprised by something that changes your mood or makes you realize you really had to do something. Unfortunately when we’re between things we don’t have the luxury to respond to pressing or emotional issues.

This week I was working with a client in a conference room and things were moving very slowly–they hadn’t prepared for the meeting and had to do a few things on their laptops before we could actually get to work. So I figured, why not check my email?

In Outlook I found a message about a project I’d recently won with a major client, though they had placed all of the Terms and Conditions into their own language. They had added a “Work for Hire” clause, indicating that our training material was “Work For Hire” and, as such, that they could rebrand and reuse it. Now I’m cool with people having issues with some of my terms, and I recognize that the contracting officer probably just plopped our contract into his template which already had that clause…but it still royally irked me. When I communicated (somewhat strongly) with the CO about why our work was not Work for Hire they just removed the clause without a question (our material is usually treated like a book–you get a certain number of copies)…but, again, it really changed my mood and I felt the need to respond then and there.

This kind of stuff happens all the time when we check our email: things surprise us and change our mode of thought.

Possible Solutions:

1. BE PRODUCTIVE NOT RISKY: The goal of checking email when you have free time is to use that time wisely. So be wise–have a book or other task ready for you. Maybe file some things, clean up, work on a task that’s not super thought intensive but needs to get done. But whatever it is, don’t check your email because there will often be surprises that change your current state.
2. CREATE A BARRIER: Don’t turn on automatic download of email messages in any of your portable devices. Put a password on your email application. Don’t carry your cellphone when you go into a client’s. Whatever it is that makes it just a little more difficult to check your email–that’ll make it much less likely to happen.

I have many more lessons to share and some specific practices I’ve tried…but at 9:30am I’d really best be getting some work done. Stay tuned…and don’t check your email.

We should receive all forms of mail once per day.

Can you imagine a world where the mailman would show up a bunch of times each day?  Where weekend activities were interrupted by bills and packages at various times?

Sounds foreign…and kind of annoying.  But that’s email.  And that’s what’s wrong with it.
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One of the problems being in a super small company is that a lot of decisions are made exclusively by the SBO (small business owner). But just because the final decision is made by the SBO doesn’t mean that the process of deciding needs to be an independent one. Here are two less obvious reasons for involving other people in the process:

1. A scheduled meeting may make the SBO show up with the research needed to make a decision at the meeting (i.e, s/he has a deadline for completing the research)
2. A meeting creates accountability that would not exist if the decision were made solely between the SBO and the SBO.

The result of these two items is often that a decision will be made sooner than it would have if the SBO had made the decision him/herself.

In the past (and to this day) I work with outside consultants and close friends to help make important decisions. But I don’t think I’ve relied on my coworkers enough for decisions that don’t relate to specific projects they’re involved with. For instance, when automating a client’s proposal process we might discuss what custom features that particular client needs. However, rarely will I sit down with coworkers to brainstorm what general features most proposal processes should incorporate.

As such, many of the bigger processes for SET (i.e., the things that don’t relate to specific projects but are still day-to-day operations) that I’d like to script out never get done. There’s not much push and I don’t like wasting people’s time outside the company with them.

The answer I’m suggesting here is to look at coworkers who are there anyways and bring them into these projects just like any other project.

I see that many of my larger clients decide everything in meetings. It’s not the best approach–taking people away from their work for a decision that’s not particularly relevant to them. But it does bring accountability into the picture and it alleviates procrastination.

I think that in the coming months I’m going to have more conversations/meetings with coworkers about things I’m working on–just to force me to make some decisions sooner than later. Even if I know I could do it myself, it’ll force the decisions to take place sooner. And, if all goes well, we’ll likely arrive at better conclusions and everyone will feel more a part of the team.

Here from Lifehacker? This week in April 2008 I’ll be writing numerous related posts on topics like productivity on the phone, online purchases that will save you time, and hacks for finishing your projects.  I’d love if you’d check them out by subscribing via RSS or email.  You won’t be disappointed!

So many threads have been rounding up the slimmest and coolest lately that I thought I’d take a stab at what I consider to be an efficient wallet. To me, intelligent use of a wallet is a combination of the following:

• Quick access to the things you need
• Professional appearance (“you’re gonna cover the bill with that worn out thing?”)
• Convenience for it fitting with any outfit or occasion

Let me say right off the bat that I’m a geek, entrepreneur, and efficiency-nut. As such my idea of the intelligent wallet fits within these paradigms. In line with the company whose article inspired this post, I’m going to offer insight through what’s worked for me.

The wallet you use all the time, and storage for the rest of the junk

Being a spendthrift I have one of those frequent shopper cards at every store from my bagel place to my hair salon. As someone who travels a lot for work, I have a frequent-use card for every major hotel and airline. But I don’t hold onto any of them, not really. This leads me to two tricks I’ve picked up.

Tip 1. Store the frequent flier and frequent guest numbers in your cellphone or PDA.

When I show up at the Hilton I click the Find feature on my Samsung Palm phone, enter “Hilton” and ouila, there’s my membership number. Same thing for

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Ever needed an alarm? Wanted a reminder? Hoped to send a message wishing someone well on their big presentation? Here’s a spin on an old idea that involves using SMS and delayed email sending.

There are a number of reasons for time-sensitive reminders/messages, but they’ve always been plagued by two things:

1. The recipient needs a reliable way to receive the reminder
2. The sender of the reminder (even if it’s yourself) needs a way to ensure that they remind the recipient at the appropriate time

I suggest time-delayed SMS. SMS, or text messaging, is built into most cellphones as a quick way to send or receive short messages. One way to send an SMS message is from one cellphone to another. Another method is to send the message through email.

While I don’t know of cellphones that allow you to delay the sending of SMS messages to a specific time, a number of email tools do allow you to schedule messages to send at specific dates and times. Thus if you want to get a reminder to someone (or yourself), you need merely schedule an email that will send a message to their phone at a specific time. Continue reading…

Mark Hurst just wrote an excellent post about people missing the point of software and technology. He brought up an ironic story about the author of a software productivity tool who couldn’t touch-type. In the comments to his post there was mostly agreement, but there was one dissenter (at least so far) who claimed that there were so many other places where he could better use his time to improve his efficiency.

Anyone who is familiar with my business knows its message–that people don’t use the most basic software very well and that they’d gain time more by better using those tools than by investing in upgrades or “productivity” tools. Shortcuts and backroads will get you to work sooner than even the fastest ‘Vette in rush hour…

That being said, I encounter friction every day when I try to change habits. People are comfortable with the way things have always been. Accepting your way to be the wrong way is tough. Changing is no easy task.

The dissenter who couldn’t type is a part of all of us. Continue reading…

I live off my Outlook reminders. But one of the things that’s always annoyed me is that, when dealing with task reminders, you can dismiss them or open the item to which they refer…but you can’t simply mark a task as completed with the click of a button. Up until now I’ve always opened the item and then changed its status to completed.

Today I just realized that you can right-click on a task reminder and choose to mark it complete without opening the item. It’s really that easy:

1. Right click on a task in your “Reminders” window
2. Select Mark Complete

Enjoy!

Every once in a while I’ll read something that gives me a swift (but helpful) kick in the butt. Such was the case with Kathy Sierra’s post on the Creating Passionate Users Blog: “How to be an Expert.” She points out that in order to be an expert one needs to be dedicated enough to make it through both the fun elements and the difficult details of their field. Sierra argues that neuroscience suggests that the truly successful are not merely “naturals” who started at a young age but are the people who were willing to suck it up and fight through the challenges. She points out:

Most of us want to practice the things we’re already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever.

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The Washington Post published an article today that reaffirms an idea I’ve been spreading for a while to my peers: blogs serve as an efficient and powerful tool for businesses to stay informed within their industry. The article primarily discussed the use of Nielsen BuzzMetrics to track trends, but it lent more credibility to the blogosphere as a whole.

One of the article’s interesting points was that blogs may offer the best gauge of customer sentiment given that they’re often “gut-level and spontaneous.” Why it is that HP needed blog-metrics to recognize this particular opinion is beyond me, but I’m glad something clued them in:

Hewlett-Packard, the computer and technology company, lately has picked up from cyberspace that customers really hate leaving their computers at shops for repairs; far better, the company learned, is having technicians repair the machines in homes. “What that makes us do is that when we think about investing more in that area, we say, yes, it’s positive to do that,” said Rickey Ono, business strategy manager for HP. “We drill into the individual comments and it helps to justify our expenditure on in-home repair.”

The article also served as fodder for a program I’m presenting at the Maryland State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in June 2006, “Relax: It’s time to Outsmart your Peers with RSS.” I hope to offer some ideas to business professionals on how they can stay informed by better utilizing RSS and other technologies related to blogs. Continue reading…

By now you’ve probably used Search & Replace in Word, and you may have even tried some of the advanced tools within it. However, as an efficiency trainer, I get to see that there’s a huge difference between those who use this tool versus those who have mastered it. The result of mastery? A heck of a lot of frustration and time saved. Maybe even some bragging rights. But enough talk…

Tip 1. Don’t perform a “Replace All.”

Inevitably there’s going to be something that doesn’t fit a pattern. You have two choices, you can refine your search (see below) to a more specific term (which is a good idea, but can be time consuming) or you can take the extra 20 seconds to review each item before replacing it. And, for the record, you don’t need to keep pressing Find and then Replace. By merely pressing Replace (or better yet, pressing R on the keyboard!), Word will move you between each selection and then replace it. A quick glance before each replacement will ensure much more accurate search & replaces.

Tip 2. Refine your searches

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