During the past years I found that technology sometimes get in the way of being productive. Look at email for example, how many times has an email come to your inbox and totally ‘wrecked’ your plans for the day? I don’t know about you but, it used to happen to me a lot.

I heard someone refer to the email inbox as a ‘nice organizational system of other people’s agenda’. I think that it is so true so much of the time. Most of my emails to others are based on my agenda. I send email requesting information that I need and I ask for it by a certain date. I also send or delegate tasks via my email system, also based on my goals and priorities. I am very ‘polite and nice’ about it but it is still my agenda that is represented.

As I am thinking about this post, I realize that my emails may be encouraging others to live by reaction instead of living by intention or purpose like I am teaching them to do. Are you letting emails plan you day or is your day planned first? If the first thing you do at the office to to check email, before your agenda is set for the day, you may be setting yourself up for reactionary planning.

Reactionary planning is planning your day based on other people’s agenda. Your agenda, your goals and your priority will take second place to someone who comes in with a well organized, goal oriented plan for YOUR day.

So, to avoid someone else managing your day, you need to plan your day first. Then, when a request for your attention or time comes in, it will be easier for you to put it where it belongs. Even if the request comes from your boss, a well-planned day will make it easier for you to negotiate the timeline. If your answer to “how busy are you?” is unclear, you will find it difficult to say you are too busy after the request has been made.

And, don’t be afraid to ask for ‘real timeline’. Often people will ask for information without a deadline, or an unrealistic one at best. If you have a well planned day/week, it will be easy for you to ask “for the real deadline”. I’ll talk about negotiating deadline in my next post.

What to do about emails?

1. First, don’t check email until you have sorted out your own priorities. Try to plan YOUR day before someone else does it for you.
2. Remember that not all emails need an answer right away. Also remember that you do not need to have your email program (Outlook, Mail, Entourage, Thunderbird, etc) running all the time. Think about your schedule, your priorities and your plan first.
3. Make a habit of checking emails only on the hour, or even less if you can.
4. If you need to send an email, like a piece of  your agenda to someone else, do it and then close the email program. Unless you are prepared to take a few minutes to PROCESS all the emails in the Inbox, don’t keep it open.
5. Communicate realistic deadline, clear action and be prepared for a NO answer. Too often, emails are unclear on what is requested and many deadlines are false or unrealistic.
6. Make sure you turn off any email ‘warning’ system that checks for email in the background.
7. Finally, remember that a well-planned day make it more difficult for someone else to plan it for you.

Check out my free short course on Managing the Inbox at MyOnlineTutorials.com

Alain