There’s more than one way to acknowledge an email

It’s a very boring topic I know but I think it’s quite an important one. Like it or lump it – and regardless of any software you have installed to help avoid direct engagement with it – email is a key method of communication for most organisations. It’s versatile, it’s familiar, it’s ubiquitous.

In the non-profit sector, email is quite likely to still be the primary means for communicating about work in progress, particularly when that work involves individuals and groups outside of your own organisation. Emails detail tasks and email management is task management. If we can’t manage our emails, we can’t manage and communicate about our tasks, and we’re very unlikely to achieve the results we’re looking for.

So email management matters.

It feels to me though as if we might have passed the peak of our interest in this subject. In the early 2000s, productivity expert Merlin Mann developed the Inbox Zero method through a series of posts on his 43 folders blog and podcast. The subsequent refinement of the method led to broad agreement on five basic but brilliant principles to help us regain control. Following the invention of these principles, however, they’ve been increasingly obscured by overcomplication and too much automation.

I’d like to advocate for a return to those principles, not just because they’re really good, but also because we need them more than ever – workloads are higher, resources are stretched thinner, and in the post-pandemic workplace we’re separated from each other by both distance and culture. Even if we do still have a telephone it would be unthinkable now to use it, so we return again to our inboxes, overwhelmed and anxious, struggling to send a response or struggling through not having received one. It’s stressful and unproductive and I would dearly like us to all get better at acknowledging and responding to each other’s emails.

The Inbox Zero method is generally set out around the following five actions:

1.      Delete – delete or archive the message if it is irrelevant or resolved
2.      Delegate – send the task to a more appropriate contact
3.      Respond – if it can be answered quickly, do so straight away
4.      Defer – if it will take more time, schedule the task and let the sender know you’ve done so
5.      Do – work on what’s left, which should only include the things that really matter

There are many variations – and as mentioned, overcomplications – and at the risk of adding more fuel to the fire of confusion, I’d like to offer up my own. This is the approach I use and I find it more appropriate for the non-profit sector, and in small organisations in particular, as it includes a little more collaboration. You will also notice it’s in reverse order (because priorities should be… prioritised?):

A.     Act – flag and complete the task
B.     Bounce – schedule the task so you can complete it later
C.     Collaborate – ask the sender for help to manage the responsibility
D.     Delegate – send the task to a more appropriate contact
E.     Extricate – decline and be clear to the sender about your boundaries
F.     Forget – ignore the message and file it away if it might be needed later

(do you see what I did there?!)

Here are those actions in a little more detail, including how they differ from Inbox Zero:

Act – flag and complete the task

Identify and flag all of the tasks that need your immediate attention.

This is your live list. You should be able to act on everything that’s been flagged within the space of a couple of days, and if you find that you can’t, then this is not the right category and the tasks need another form of management from the list. In comparison to Inbox Zero, this is simply anything you must or can action (‘respond’ and ‘do’) without needing to send a holding response (‘defer’).

In this category you are clearly accepting responsibility for actioning these tasks and the sender will need to know when they have been actioned – this is where it can be easy to over or under email. If you are tackling the task relatively quickly, you don’t need to reply until you’ve got the results of your work and you might not need to reply at all if the results will be evident through other means. Conversely though, it’s important to remember that reading counts as an action, and if you have read an email it’s usually helpful to make this known. A simple ‘thank you’ will usually do – or else what you see as ‘act’ may be perceived by others as ‘forget’ which could lead to frustrations or unnecessary follow ups.

Bounce – schedule the task so you can complete it later

Make a decision about when you will complete the task and add it to your calendar or workplan.

This category is for everything that needs your attention, but not right now. This is the ‘defer’ of Inbox Zero, with the small distinction that if your scheduling means the task will be completed in the timeframe that’s expected, then it may not be necessary to reply to confirm this. Less is more!

Collaborate – ask the sender for help to manage the responsibility

Reply to the sender to agree what should happen next to resolve the outstanding task.

This is a new addition to the Inbox Zero method and one which I feel is badly needed in small organisations. It’s for occasions when you need to ‘act’ on or ‘bounce’ the task but neither of those options is possible because you’ve just got too many other priorities.

Explain to the sender that the task cannot be a priority right now and shift the responsibility back to them, for example, by asking them either to come back to you at a much later date, to be more selective about exactly which element of the task they need your input on, or to start some initial work on the task themselves. The aim of this option is to allow you to put the task out of your mind but without being disrespectful to your colleagues (by not raising workload issues until late in the day) or neglecting your duties (by completely failing to address the task at all).

Delegate – send the task to a more appropriate contact

Pass the task on to a colleague who is more appropriately positioned to action it.

This category is exactly the same as the ‘delegate’ in Inbox Zero. Ensure all of the relevant parties are copied into the message and that the delegation includes a clear explanation of the rationale for the transfer of the responsibility.

Extricate – decline and be clear to the sender about your boundaries

Reply to the sender to decline the task and remove yourself from this area of work.

This is another addition to the Inbox Zero method which seems to lack an option for clearly but politely saying ‘no’. There are just some requests that are not appropriate and whilst ignoring the email may seem like the answer, at best it’s unlikely to discourage future requests, and at worst it’s unkind and may foster bad feeling. Clear is kind. It would be much better to decline and clearly set out your boundaries, particularly in the interests of maintaining reputations and relationships.

Forget – ignore the message and file it away if it might be needed later

Purposefully ignore the message.

Yes this is valid option – for cold calls, group emails, and errant requests – and it can be a useful way to send a particular message (without actually resorting to other f-words!). Use it but use it sparingly, and don’t end up using it by mistake when you ought to be using one of the above. In comparison to Inbox Zero, this is anything you want to dismiss (the ‘delete’ option) and I usually recommend filing or archiving instead of the nuclear option. In small organisations, it’s impossible to predict when you might suddenly need to come back to – or find yourself responsible for – something you previously thought was far outside of your remit.

Once you get used to this way of thinking, the categorisation will come naturally and quickly.

You will also get used to recategorisation, something that’s discouraged in Inbox Zero variations which usually promote the one touch rule – a nice idea but one which ignores the realities of changing circumstances and workloads. Every day is a new day and what was feasible yesterday is not necessarily so today. Recategorisation is essential. The most common moves will reapplying a new approach to things you had optimistically put into the ‘act’ category, but I’d encourage actively focusing on using the ‘collaborate’ and ‘extricate’ so that you avoid leaning too heavily on ‘forget’.

This isn’t just about how we manage our emails, it’s about the way that we work together and show kindness to each other through our approach to communication. You might be great at the work itself, but just imagine how much greater you could be if you were communicating more effectively about it too.